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Echoes in Time by

Andre Norton and

Sherwood Smith

PROLOGUE

THE DAY'S HEAT had diminished to only a residual shimmer from the

cooling earth. The chitter and click of insects in the scrubby green brush
formed a kind of musical accompaniment to the laughing and singing of
the long, snaking line of children crouched together, one in front of the
other, knees up near their chins.

"Here is our mother!

Our mother, our mother!

Here is our harvest,

Our fruit, our harvest!

Our mother, our fruit…"

The children laughed as they sang, their bare toes scrabbling forward

in the dust as they waddled and hopped. Their dark brown skin was
mottled and streaked with painted patterns, some chalk-white, others
subtle earth tones. Sweat and dust marred the fine lines of the patterns,
not that the children cared. They were only playing. They sang and
laughed with the companionable abandon of children who know that the
time for real skin painting, when they became adults with adult
responsibilities for food and shelter, war and marriage, lay far in the
sunny future, after many harvest games such as this.

Saba Mariam, watching from her post beside a jumble of rocks, felt as

if she had been wafted back through time. So the children of the Surma
had played and sang for countless generations in this sere mountain
region of southwest Ethiopia.

She looked down at her hands, the skin dark against the plain khaki of

her trousers. She and her recorder were the only jarring notes in this scene
out of history, the only intrusion of modernity—though at any time an
airplane might roar overhead, causing children and adults alike to pause,
like startled deer, before they scampered off to hide.

Saba glanced at her tape recorder, working silently behind a warm gray

boulder. The Surma tolerated her strange ways because she did not
interfere with them, and she had proved that she was not in fact sent by
their age-old enemies, the Bumi. She looked strange to men and women
alike, with her ears and lips unpierced. She was, to the Surma, a child
walking around in a grown body, for she did not display the ritual
markings of a responsible adult, but they dismissed her strangeness with a
kind of humorous tolerance.

Saba had learned to sit quietly, patiently, drawing no attention to

herself. After her long stretches of neutral observance, she knew that the
people would forget her presence. She would become no more interesting
than another boulder, or a patch of scrubby grass, and it was then that she
turned on the recorder, making a record of music that had been handed
down through families over centuries and centuries of time.

It was good work. Important work. Saba was proud to be one of many

who quietly went about recording the songs and myths that had sustained
human beings since the cradle of civilization. Progress had brought to the
Earth untold advantages, but its pervasive growth was choking off in
ever-increasing numbers the very old languages, customs, and cultures of
peoples who had lived in harmony with the land since humans first
crossed the great continents.

It was indeed important work, Saba thought as one very small

three-year-old tripped and went rolling in the dust. The song broke up
into laughter. The children reformed into their line; one girl at the front
began singing again, soon joined by the others, as in the distance a group
of mothers and young unmarried women chattered and prepared food.

Important work—and involving work. It kept one busy, which in its

turn prevented one from worrying about those things that could not be
solved—

As she thought this, she became aware of a sound that perhaps had

warned her subliminally of approaching intrusions.

The faint hum, reminiscent of bees bumbling around flowers, resolved

into a battered old motorcycle drawing a three-wheeled side car. The rusty
machine was probably older than Saba herself.

The children heard it as well. For a moment they all went still, and then

their leader dashed through the dust to her mother. The other children
followed, some still laughing, others singing bits of song. The mothers
gathered their young and vanished into the sun-dried brush.

Saba climbed up on a boulder and shaded her eyes against the great,

bloodred late October sun. The driver of the motorcycle revved the engine
and zoomed around brush and scraggly trees, halting two meters from
Saba's rocks.

Saba held her breath as the wafting odors of petrol and exhaust blew

past, so unfamiliar after her month here in the wild mountainous region.
The driver, meanwhile, pulled off sunglasses and a tight baseball cap,
shaking free a cloud of curling brown hair. The clothing—tough,
anonymous bush garb—had made gender difficult to guess at; a gloved
hand pulled out a kerchief and mopped some of the dust and grit from a
middle-aged female face as Saba approached.

The driver looked up, shoving the kerchief into a pocket. "La Professeur

Mariam? Vous etes Saba Mariam?" she asked.

Saba nodded, adding in French, "Is there an emergency?"

"Oui" French was obviously no more the driver's native tongue than it

was Saba's, but Saba had gotten used to polyglot conversations—often in
tongues chosen because possible surrounding listeners would not
understand the conversation. Not that any listeners were around now.

The woman said, "Je m'appelle Taski Aleyescoglu. Je suis avec L'Etoile

Projet."

Project Star.

For a moment Saba stood staring at the unfamiliar woman, angry at

this breach of promise.

L'Etoile Projet—Project Star—was the bland name for one of the most

secret organizations in the world, one for which Saba had given her
strength, her spirit, and nearly her life.

Saba turned her gaze on the Time Agent courier. "I was promised a

year," she said in French. "A year to recover."

"It is an emergency," Agent Aleyescoglu replied.

"Answer me this first: has Lisette Al-Aseer reported in?"

The Time Agent did not pretend to not know the name. Her lips

pressed into a line, and she shook her head. "I am sorry, Professor
Mariam."

Saba drew a deep breath. "And they expect me to cut short my recovery

time? And return?"

The agent said, "Whatever is going on is classified over my head—as is

whatever your former partner is still working on. All I was told was to find
you and bring you back. Whatever it is that has them scrambling now,
apparently only you can solve it."

Saba turned her gaze to the last limb of the sun, sinking beyond the

western peaks. Shadows blended softly now, making it difficult to see the
woman's face. If she was to leave, she'd have to go now; they were miles
from any road, and driving about at night in Ethiopia in the dark was no
simple matter.

She looked back. "Me as a musicologist?"

"You as you. That's all I was told: it must be you, it can be no other

person."

Strange. But time travel was strange, that Saba knew. Strange, alien,

and even more remorseless than the natural passage of time.

She looked over the distant clumps of trees, knowing that the Surma

crouched there, and she smiled sadly to herself. All very well to fancy that

she had stepped back in time while recording these people celebrating the
year's harvest. Apparently she was to be drawn back into real time travel,
in a machine designed and built by beings never born on Earth. How
many agents had been lost in the quest to understand this technology
from beyond the stars?

She shook her head.

"Can you tell me at least where this emergency is taking place?"

"I wasn't told. Of course," Taski said, settling onto the motorcycle and

pulling on her goggles. "But when I was on my way out, I overheard an
order for someone to contact the American Embassy for your visa."

"New York! So this new emergency involves the Americans?" Saba

shook her head. She knew that Project Star had originated with the
United States, but so far her connection with the Americans had been
peripheral at best.

Taski grinned as she yanked the baseball cap over her forehead. "Big

boss will probably be out here next, and you can ply him with all the
questions you like."

Saba sat back on her rock. "If there is so urgent a need," she said, "why

did he not come here instead of you?"

Taski revved the engine, which roared, sending some distant birds

flapping skyward from the shrubs. Their cries echoed back, faint as the
laughter of children, as the motor died down to an uneven growl.

"Might have," Taski called. "But he's still in Mother Russia."

Russia?

Saba mouthed the word, but did not speak. In amazement—and

apprehension—she gazed at the courier, who gave her a careless salute,
revved the engine once more, then drove off into the twilight, leaving a
cloud of light brown dust hanging in the still air.

Russia? And the Americans? Could there be a connection?

She might not have been able to conquer her bitterness, but one thing

she had learned was patience.

Saba bent over the recorder, pressed the ON button, then settled back

to wait for the Surma to emerge, like shy ghosts, from the shelter of the
brush.

"VIKHODITE! RUKI V' VERKH!"

"Like hell I'll come out with my hands up." Mikhail Petrovich Nikulin

smashed the butt of his pistol into a corner of window, and stuck the
muzzle through the hole. Bitter Siberian air smote his sweaty face.

Two things happened almost at once.

From behind came a shout: "Nikulin! You know the orders!"

From outside the rickety old building came the Match! and click!s as

two of the half-hidden gangsters dropped bullets into the chambers of
their rifles.

Phwup. A large-calibre bullet burrowed into the half-frozen slush just

below Misha's window, kicking up splatters of mud.

Footsteps from behind. A moment later a short, darkhaired figure

crouched below the level of the windowsill. "Nikulin!"

Misha did not have to look down; he knew that voice, and he knew the

expression on the older man's face.

"You know the orders. No violence. If we have to, we activate the

destruction device on the ship," Gaspardin said.

White hot anger flared through Misha Nikulin. "We are not going to

lose that ship," he stated, his gaze staying on the figures in the bulky coats
creeping foward from the cars to the old stone fence.

He fired once, and heard a shouted curse. Outside, one of the gangsters

flung up his weapon and dropped, rolling in the muddy slush, hand
clasped around his wounded knee.

"Misha—"

On the periphery of his vision Nikulin saw Gaspardin reach up for his

pistol. "Don't touch me."

The hand vanished. "You will answer to the Colonel for contravening

orders."

"If that ship is blown up, she will answer to me," Misha said, and again

he fired, winging a second figure in the arm.

The trefoil flicker of automatic weapons fire glowed outside, and all

around Misha wood splintered. Glass shattered and rained down in a
musical tinkle. He dropped to the dusty wooden floor and belly-crawled,
not back to the inner room, as Gaspardin did, but to the kitchen annex,
where he'd stashed an old wartime teargas pistol.

As the furious automatic fire stitched across the weatherworn,

dilapidated building, Misha loaded the pistol with a teargas cannister,
used the butt to knock out a corner of the brittle glass, and then took aim.

He fired into the midst of the attackers. Heard choked, angry cries. A

whiff of teargas drifted on the cold air, making him sneeze, just as raking
bullets smashed into the antique ceramic oven, sending out a lethal spray
of shards.

Warmth creased Misha's ribs. He ignored it. Steadied his grip. Shot a

second time, then flung aside the tear gas weapon and picked up his
pistol. Dropped the magazine. Checked to see if it still had ammunition.
Slid the magazine home and jacked a round into the chamber.

He kept crawling from place to place, forcing himself to make each shot

count, until the roaring outside grew louder than the roar in his ears.

The shooting had ceased. He leaned against a window, glanced outside,

and realized the gangsters had retreated to their vehicles and roared away.

Misha stared through the window, trying to make sense of the endless

gray Siberian sky meeting the distant horizon. But it didn't make sense.
Nothing made sense except the fact that the mission was safe. The alien
ship was safe.

"… realize it, don't you?"

Misha looked over his shoulder, made out in the swiftly gathering

darkness Gaspardin's anger-narrowed eyes, his mouth white in his
grizzled jowls.

"You defied orders," Gaspardin repeated. Then his expression changed

as his gaze worked down Misha's shirt.

Misha glanced down, but all he saw were billowing clouds of darkness.

He lifted his free hand to his side, and felt the wet warmth there.

"Damn," he said, and slid into the darkness.

HE WOKE STARING up at a low sod ceiling. He smelled generations of

cabbage and potato meals and unwashed wool. Heard the creak of a chair.

"So you are awake, young man." That voice belonged to Colonel

Vasilyeva. Misha turned his head, saw her sitting by a narrow window set
into the thick stone wall. Through the window he glimpsed hayricks, and
the long white Russian sky. He knew this place; it was the fallback position
for their team, in case of disaster. His hand lifted to his ribs, encountered
a taped bandage there.

He said, finding his throat dry, "The mission is safe."

"No thanks to you."

The Colonel's face was calm, her gaze unwavering. Like others who had

spent childhood under the shadow of Stalin, she seemed to have no
emotions whatsoever.

Misha knew that was wrong.

He said, "The ship?"

"It is safe enough. Now." Her voice was as immovable as granite. When

she was angry, her demeanor carried all the force of a rockslide. "But that
will not be the case if any of your victims die, and the government turns its
attention back on us."

Misha fought against blinding anger, and winced as he moved restlessly

on the bed.

"If," she stated in a low, soft voice, "I give orders for that alien ship to

be destroyed, it will be done."

Misha gritted his teeth and forced himself to sit up against the wall.

The Colonel went on, "They were just a bunch of opportunists, there to

take over the energy plant, and use it for some easy piracy by price
gouging. They had no idea that we are time agents, and that we have an
alien ship. And of course they are going to come back, in bigger numbers.
We have to make certain that what they find will be a hydroelectric plant.
Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing," she said in a slow, cold voice, "to
raise questions."

"I'm sorry," Misha said at last, though it cost him more effort than

sitting up had.

The Colonel sat back, one blunt hand working at her temples as if she

had a headache. If one were to interpret that gesture as weakness, that
would be equally wrong.

"The Americans have a ship," she said. "We are now allied with them.

The Germans have a ship. The French have a ship, as do the Norwegians,
and Africans. May I remind you, Mikhail Petrovich, that these are all our
allies now? The Time Agency is worldwide. This mission will be carried
through, even if one of us loses a ship."

Misha shook his head, then winced as corresponding pain racketed

through his skull. "I'm sorry. I just don't believe the Americans are going
to help. Or if they do, what their price is going to be."

"None of us know," the Colonel said. "My entire life I have not trusted

them, but necessity forces change. You forced it sooner than I would have
wished."

Misha winced.

The Colonel said, "Our people should be finishing up at the energy plant

right now. Then on their way to St. Petersburg to get ready for the
journey." She dropped her hands to her knees. "None of us trust the
Americans. But balanced against that is the reality of our government
struggling to survive, and the unrest so very close. No one must find out
about these alien artifacts—either the ships or the time-travel

mechanisms. You know that as well as I. Rather than let anyone find out,
anyone at all, we blow up the ship—we blow ourselves up. These secrets
cannot fall into the wrong hands. Every single government who knows the
secrets agrees. And so necessity forces us all to compromise. To work
together. To solve the mysteries we've been presented, before we find
ourselves with bigger problems from outside our gravity well than we're
causing for one another within it."

She sat back.

Misha sighed, presing his hand against his side. It hurt. "The mission?"

"The flight to New York leaves tomorrow. We begin the training there."

Lightning flared behind Misha's eyes. He strugged up, made it to his

feet. "I'm going," he said, not caring that his voice broke. "Get me on that
flight."

"But the doctor—"

"I don't care. I will be on that mission, if I have to blast my way across

eight time zones to do it. And you know I never make empty threats."

They stared at one another.

"Zina." He relented at last. "Please."

The Colonel's lips creased. Just faintly.

Misha sank down onto the hay-stuffed bed. The effort of standing had

made him dizzy. But that no longer mattered. He knew he'd won.

"We will leave tomorrow," she said, "but without you. As soon as your

fever is down, you will follow us." She pointed at the bed. "Now get some
sleep." The door shut behind her.

CHAPTER 1

THE PHONE RANG. Ross Murdock looked up, startled.

For a moment his eyes met his wife's across the room. Eveleen paused

in the act of patting down the folded tablecloth on the basket they'd both

just finished packing.

Strange, to hear a phone ring. It'd been days since they'd been so rudely

interrupted—long, glorious autumn days there at Safeharbor, on the coast
of Maine. No phone, no TV, no newspapers—nothing but seabirds, and the
sound of the breakers crashing on the rocks down the hill from the house,
and each other. Heaven.

"Let's ignore it," Ross said.

Eveleen shook her head. "This isn't our house, it's Gordon's, and it

might be someone who needs to get in touch with him."

"Who?" Ross asked as the phone rang a second time.

Eveleen's expressive brown eyes glanced at him, rounded with amused

patience. "Friends? Family?"

"Outside of the Project, he doesn't have any friends," Ross said, half

joking. "And I don't think there's any family either. The Project is his
friends and family."

Eveleen said, "I really think we should answer it."

"Then I'll get it," Ross said. "I'm closer."

On the fourth ring he picked it up. "Ashe residence."

"Ross." The voice was immediately familiar—Major Kelgarries. "I've

been trying to reach you. We've got an emergency—"

Ross slammed down the receiver. "Phone sales," he said, forcing a

smile. "Let's get going on that picnic before the weather drives us back
inside again."

Eveleen smiled back, hefted the basket, and opened the door.

Ross closed the door on the sound of the phone ringing again. "Looks

like we might luck out weather-wise after all," he said in a voice of loud,
hearty cheer.

Eveleen looked at him with her brows quirked, but she said nothing as

he slid his hand next to hers on the basket, and with their picnic lunch

swinging between them, the two started up the trail behind the house.

An hour later Ross lay stretched out on the cool grass, staring up at the

cloud formations.

Emergency, he thought. Yeah, sure. There always was some damned

emergency on Project Star, and it seemed to Ross that he'd been stuck in
the middle of most of them.

Well, he'd done his time. They'd promised Eveleen and him a

honeymoon, and he meant to have it. A honeymoon meant just the two of
them, no interruptions, nothing more dangerous than the occasional
bumblebee.

He glanced at Eveleen, who had been watching the wheeling seabirds

swooping and circling above the Maine breakers. She had turned her
attention to him. Their eyes met, and hers narrowed.

"Phone sales?" she repeated.

Surprised, Ross said, "What?"

Eveleen's mouth deepened at the corners. "I might be dense, but it

seems odd to me that you'd still be angry an hour after hanging up on a
junk sales call."

Ross snorted. "Angry?"

Eveleen reached over and traced her finger over his jaw-line. "Clenched.

Just like some movie hero about to be blasted by twenty
machine-gun-totin' bad guys." She tapped his hand, which—he belatedly
noticed—had been drumming on the grass. "Not quite white knuckles, but
the next thing to it."

Ross gave her a reluctant grin. "It was Kelgarries."

Eveleen whistled. Beyond her, a gull cawed, and far below, as if picking

up the sound, came the mews and cries of myriad seabirds.

"This is our time," Ross stated. "I resent like hell their breaking their

promise."

"But you know it has to be an emergency, or they wouldn't," Eveleen

said. "Did he have a chance to say anything?"

Ross, remembering that same word emergency, gave a shrug.

"Darling." Eveleen looked sardonic. "Don't even waste the breath

claiming you don't care. Or that they don't care. The fact is, Kelgarries's
ghost is sitting right here between us, or you wouldn't be so tense. We
might as well go back and find out what the problem is."

"Dammit." Ross got up, and began repacking the basket.

"Does 'dammit' mean that I'm right?" Eveleen asked, grinning. "A

spouse likes to be able to decode these little clues."

"Dammit means dammit," Ross said, slinging the basket over his

shoulder.

"I'll remember that," Eveleen said, chuckling, as they started back down

the trail.

Within half an hour of their reaching Gordon Ashe's house, the phone

rang again. Eveleen gave Ross that sardonic look again. "I'll get it this
time," she said, and picked up the phone. "Gordon Ashe's residence," she
said in a polite voice. "Eveleen Riordan speaking. May I take a message?"

Ross wished—absurdly, he knew—that she would follow that with

"Sorry, wrong number," or maybe "No, we don't need any aluminum
siding."

But ten seconds passed. Thirty. She still hadn't spoken.

Ross crossed the room to her side and waited in silence.

She finally said, "I understand, Major. And we appreciate the extra

time you've allowed us. See you tomorrow."

She gently laid the receiver back into the cradle, and turned her face up

to Ross. "Emergency indeed."

"Project Star." Ross swore, then added, "We should have used the damn

transfer machine to blast us forward, or back, or somewhere in time when
they couldn't find us." He sighed. "What kind of emergency? He say? No,
he wouldn't—not over the phone."

"Correct. All he said was that they need us to report to the Center."

"What about Gordon?"

"He's already there."

Ross let out a long sigh. "It was too good to last, I guess," he muttered,

biting down what he really wanted to say. But cursing fate, the world, and
his bosses wouldn't change anything. So he added only, "Tomorrow?"

"They're sending a copter to pick us up. At least we don't have to drive

all million and a half of those windy roads back down the coast again."

"If it meant we could be alone a little longer…" Ross started.

Eveleen grinned, and wiggled her brows suggestively. "We have the rest

of tonight. Let's make the most of it."

He had no objections to that.

GORDON ASHE POURED a cup of fresh coffee and sat down at the

briefing table. He looked up at Major Kelgarries, who gave him a
somewhat lopsided smile before saying, "They'll be here tomorrow."

"Was Ross pretty fluent?" Gordon asked, trying for lightness.

Kelgarries—a tall, hatchet-faced man—said, "Ross hung up on me. Ten

tries later I spoke with Eveleen. When I mentioned an emergency, she
seemed to appreciate our having given them as much time as we have. I
suspect Ross might have had a more, ah, characteristic and colorful
reaction, but she was the one to hear it—not me."

Gordon Ashe nodded, smiling. Truth was, he was impatient to get Ross

and Eveleen back, to plunge directly into what promised to be a tough
assignment. He'd never permitted himself to indulge in what he
considered to be a dangerous luxury, romance. It was too much like
weakness. Yet he had to admit that Eveleen Riordan and Ross Murdock
made an excellent partnership.

The catch was that Ross and Gordon were no longer partners.

So would he go solo this time? Or would he, Ross, and Eveleen make a

threesome?

Wait. Hadn't Nelson Milliard, the top boss, said something about a

later discussion concerning personnel for the mission?

Gordon sipped at his coffee, resigning himself to a day's wait. His years

of archaeological study had forced him to learn patience.

AT MIDDAY THE next day, Ross and Eveleen's second copter ride

ended outside a nondescript building located on the outskirts of a small
town in upstate New York.

They stepped out of the copter, bending low against the powerful blasts

of air generated by the slowing blades—and by a cold rain-laden wind.

As if nature had agreed that their honeymoon was over, a powerful

storm had swept down from the north during the night, and it had chased
them steadily as they transferred from copter to small plane to copter
again.

Ross was peripherally aware of his scarred hand flexing and then

tightening into a fist as he and Eveleen crossed the tarmac to the front of
the building blandly labeled NORTHSIDE RESEARCH INSTITUTE. His
danger sense—whether sparked by the storm or by anticipation of
whatever news awaited them inside—made him edgy.

He glanced at Eveleen as a security guard opened the thick glass doors

for them. She looked neat and competent as always, her brown hair swept
up into a chignon, her slacks and shirt attractive but easy to move in. Only
someone who had been trained in martial arts recognized in her
controlled grace the mark of the expert who was poised for action; though
her face was pleasant, even smiling, Ross realized that she, too, was tense.

Just then she glanced across at him, a quick, assessing gaze. He

grinned, she grinned.

So they were beginning to read each other's moods.

The elevator opened then, and they passed inside. Instead of going up

one floor to what Ross figured were ordinary offices, they went down the

equivalent of five or six floors, deep underground.

They did not speak during the short ride down. When the doors slid

open again, they looked out on a familiar scene: the main offices of what
had been known merely as Project Star, the work of a government agency
so secret that there wasn't even any acronym to spark the interest of the
curious.

Full-spectrum lighting and lots of potted indoor plants made the best of

an underground facility sealed fifty feet below light and air. Ross and
Eveleen strode past cubicles and desks, glancing at the busy support staff
who researched projects for the Time Agents—and then sorted the data
that resulted from the agents' excursions into the past.

How many of these people, most of whom he did not know, had had to

read Ross's reports, and write up reports of their own?

He supposed he could find out if he wanted to, he thought as they

passed through the double doors at the other end of the big room. But did
he really want to know how much work he was making for someone else?

The thought caused him to repress a grin as they reached the outer

office belonging to Nelson Milliard, the head boss of the Project.

At their entrance, three men and a woman glanced up. Milliard looked

like a typical CEO—big, gray-haired, abrupt in movement, a man to whom
time was precious. Major Kelgarries, Ross's very first contact in the
Project, could never be mistaken for anything but a military man. But the
third man, Gordon Ashe, looked to the uninitiated like an outdoorsman:
brown-skinned, blue eyes, brown hair with blond sunstreaks, and very fit.
It was not obvious to the casual observer that Ashe was also a doctor of
archaeology, and a leader with a very subtle mind.

The fourth person, a woman, was unknown to Ross. Short,

middle-aged, and gray-haired, dressed in a plain suit of blue linen, she
displayed the same characteristics as Milliard; whoever she was, Ross
decided after a second's evaluation, she was important.

"Ross. Eveleen," Milliard said in greeting. "Permit me to introduce you

to Colonel Zinaida Vasilyeva."

A Russian?

Milliard turned to the woman. "Colonel Vasilyeva, these are Eveleen

Riordan and Ross Murdock, two of our best troubleshooters."

The woman gave a short nod and a brief smile. "I have read much

about you." Her English was excellent, if heavily accented.

I'll bet you have, Ross thought grimly. Question is, our reports—or

those written by your spies?

"Please, sit down," Milliard said, indicating two waiting chairs.

"Coffee? Something to eat?"

Just then the smell of fresh coffee registered on Ross, and he rose to

help himself. As he poured out two mugs, he looked over his shoulder at
Ashe, who watched, smiling faintly. "Russian?" he mouthed the
word—knowing the others couldn't see.

Ashe's only response was a slight crinkling of the skin around his eyes.

Milliard went on. "We're still expecting Colonel Vasilyeva's colleagues,

and one of our own people, all of whom were delayed by the weather in
Washington, D.C. The Colonel came on ahead so that we could begin the
preliminary briefings. The Major will give you the general outline of what
we're up against." He nodded at Kelgarries, and sat down.

Kelgarries turned to Vasilyeva. "Would you care to begin, Colonel?"

The Russian Colonel gave a short nod, and folded her hands. "We have

come to request your aid," she said slowly, in accented but excellent
English. "In the past the politics of our governments have made us rivals,
and perhaps we Time Agents fostered that rivalry in an intellectual sense
even after the political issues were resolved."

Kelgarries grinned, and the Colonel's eyes narrowed in unexpected

humor.

Ross found himself grinning as well. Early on during Project Star, the

diminishing Cold War had kept the two Terran nations apart, even when
they seemed to be fighting the same enemy. Later, after the Cold War was
officially considered at an end, the race for knowledge had seemed less
political and more of a game to see who learned the most the quickest.
Except it had been a game full of danger.

"But you had reason to be wary about approaching us before this."

Milliard's diplomatic statement brought a sour smile to Ross's lips. He

hid it by sipping coffee.

"That is so." The Colonel gave an abrupt nod. "In the very beginning,

when we encountered the entities you Americans nicknamed the Baldies,
we assumed incorrectly that they might be allies of yours. Their
actions—destroying our bases without provocation—made investigation
into your possible motives seem dangerous. It was deemed better to trust
only ourselves."

Remembering those days, Ross felt a twinge in his hands. He nodded

grimly.

"I see you agree, Agent Murdock," the Colonel said, comprehension

clear in her dark eyes. "These Baldies are dangerous, and even after we
discovered that you, too, worked against them, we did not know how far
they had penetrated your own establishments."

Ross spoke for the first time. "So what's the score here? Baldies pulling

a fast one on you?"

"Fast… one?" The Colonel repeated, frowning slightly.

"Baseball slang." Kelgarries turned to Ross. "No—at least not directly.

Our target is a world, not a people, though the Baldies might very well be
involved."

"But—" Ross looked from the Major to Ashe. "Dominion—"

"Is still safe," Gordon Ashe said quietly. "What this concerns is the

world we first visited aboard that derelict, with Travis and Renfry.
Remember?"

Ross grimaced, recalling the terrifying journey aboard a ship whose

controls were totally alien, the worlds they'd nearly lost their lives on not
once but several times. "How can I forget?"

The Colonel said, "When you returned, as you will probably remember,

the tapes you brought back were shared among those governments who
wished to exploit the knowledge on them. The random draw awarded to us

the tapes that focused on that particular world."

"I remember that," Ross said. "And I was just as glad we were officially

rid of that planet!"

The Colonel smiled, then continued. "We surmised, as apparently you

did, that the ruined city you had visited was once a major starport, a
center for many different star-faring species. Our immediate goal was to
learn what we could about the Baldies to protect ourselves against another
attack like the one that was so devastating to us. Our decoding of the
tapes was frustratingly slow, and funding in our country is always an
issue. Since we—I speak now of the Time Project—must remain a secret
from the general public, and thus we win the government little advantage
in the eyes of the citizens, the government wants maximum results for
minimum funding."

Kelgarries and Milliard nodded, exchanging glances. Ross felt an

unexpected spurt of sympathy for the Russians.

"It is much the same here, then?"

"Much the same," Kelgarries said.

The Colonel smiled again, this time her mouth curving in irony. "Well,

you will understand, then, when I tell you that it was decided at high levels
in our government to speed our research along by sending a party of
scientists back to when the starport was flourishing in order to gather
more data."

Ross whistled on a low, soft note.

Colonel Vasilyeva's brows quirked. "Yes, it seemed… premature to us as

well. We planned what we believed to be a more cautious approach. Our
time-travel team jumped back to when the tower you identified as a
library was still functional, or at least intact, but after a time when we had
adjudged the starport was no longer in use. After all, for all we knew, the
starport might be peopled entirely by the Baldies, and we had no faith in
their welcoming human beings into their midst."

"We'd probably plan an approach similar to yours," Ashe said. "I take it

something went wrong?"

"That's what we need to find out." The Colonel turned to face him, her

hands now tightly clasped. "Except for an abandoned Time Capsule, our
scientists sent back to the past have vanished utterly, leaving no trace."

CHAPTER 2

"NO TRACE," ROSS repeated. "But wouldn't that give a hint?"

"The Time Capsule's log was ended abruptly, so abruptly that we do not

believe that Katarina, the team archivist, had time to add a warning or
even a summation," the Colonel said.

"Can you describe your general plan of approach?" Gordon asked,

leaning forward, his fingertips together.

"We send our exploratory teams out in doubles, the time-travel team,

and the base team. While the travel team of scientists go back in time, the
others stay and guard the ship and the transfer apparatus, and gather
scientific data while waiting. Our travel teams can't reset the time from
the far end—our technology was severely set back by the destruction the
Baldies caused us—so time in the past marches parallel to time in the
present. Our teams cannot appear moments after they left; that would
require resetting the apparatus from the far end, which is impossible,
since the far-end equipment is merely a projection, or image, of the
present-end apparatus."

Kelgarries said, "Our own practices have brought us to much the same

rule, if possible. There are ways to force micro-jumps within a given time:
they are incredibly energy-costly, but even more risky, we've found after
some disasters, is that they somehow stretch the fabric of time
dangerously. We try to keep missions running parallel to current time."

The Colonel nodded in agreement. "We still do not really understand

this alien technology—either how it works, or why."

Ross spoke up. "But the Time Capsule?"

"We have a standard schedule," the Colonel said. "Forgive me for what

must seem circumlocution, but I believe it is necessary to describe all this
in detail."

"We understand," Ashe said. "Please. Continue."

The Colonel paused to sip at her coffee, and then she sat back tiredly in

her chair. "We never know if the travel team will execute their orders in
hours, or weeks, so we arrange scientific gathering in a priority order. The
guard team takes samples of the immediate surroundings, and analyzes
them. They set up posts for observing local denizens. In this instance, the
orders included finding the tower that you once found, Dr. Ashe, and
exploring it, if the indigenous flying peoples permitted. We had included
in our equipment items we thought to trade for the ancient spools—if
there were any left for us to collect."

"And were there?" Gordon asked.

She gave her head a quick shake. "You and your colleagues had gotten

the prime specimens," she said with a nod of approval. "But we wanted to
double-check. We expected our travel team to be able to get far better
materials from the functioning library—which would correlate with the
present. Anything we gathered would, of course, be missing in our portion
of the timeline."

Everyone nodded.

"After that, they were to start exploring farther out, excluding only the

hostile weasel folk and their territory. Some of our people were to examine
the buildings, and others to work in widening circles through the jungle
area, taking samples and analyzing them." She frowned down into her
coffee cup, her gaze going distant. "We found the remains of one of our
travel team on the third sweep."

The room was completely silent.

"On the sixth, we picked up a signal," she continued. "It meant that the

travel team had buried a Time Capsule, for whatever reason."

Ross made an impatient movement, caught Eveleen's eye, and

controlled it. Major Kelgarries looked over at him, his upper lip
lengthened as if he repressed the urge to smile, but he said nothing.

The Colonel, however, noticed the movement, and gave Ross a

courteous nod. "You have a question, Mr. Murdock?"

"I just wonder why your team didn't detect their Time Capsule on

arrival?"

"If they had, they wouldn't have jumped," Ashe said, grinning.

Eveleen grimaced. "Sometimes this time stuff makes my brain ache."

"Mine as well," Milliard admitted.

"Is same thing as quantum mechanics, Schrodinger's Cat, you know?"

the Colonel said, leaning forward. In her intensity to convey her thoughts,
her Russian accent was very strong. "The Time Capsule both was and was
not detectable until the first team jumped. Then the superposition
collapsed. After that the Time Capsule was." She shook her head. "Nah! Is
easier to say this in Russian."

"Comparable to the Baldies' interference with our station up north,

several years ago," Kelgarries said. "We didn't see the evidence of their
tampering when we arrived and set up base, until after the events—and we
knew what to look for."

Ross realized his surprise must have shown, because Kelgarries went

on. "Yes, we've already exchanged detailed briefings on all missions, on
both sides. We each need to know everything if there's to be any hope of
rescuing that survey team."

How detailed? Ross wanted to ask. He hid his reaction as the Colonel

said, "We can explain the specifics this way: where would our team have
searched? Should they spend countless weeks searching the entire planet
for a possible Time Capsule, which could be anywhere? There was no
signal at the transfer site, remember, so our base team had no clue that a
search ought to be made. The sixth circle was quite far out."

"Got it," Ross said, still trying to assimilate Kelgarries's matter-of-fact

statement about exchanging info. "Sorry about the interruption."

Colonel Vasilyeva gave her head a quick shake. "All questions are

important when we deal with the past and present, and how they are
interlocked. And I have little more to tell you. The Time Capsule was an
almost daily report, ending abruptly after Day Sixty-two—correlating with
the present— about three weeks before the Capsule was found. The only
common item among them all was a feeling of malaise—an allergic

reaction, we judged—but this was also felt by our scientists in the present
time, only not as severe. And once they returned to the globe ship, their
symptoms disappeared."

"A broad-spectrum course of anti-allergens will take care of that,"

Kelgarries said.

The Colonel nodded. "We had not taken this precaution as the report

made by your team"—she nodded at Gordon— "had not indicated
illnesses."

"Nothing serious," Gordon said. "Could be a seasonal thing?"

"This is what we assume," the Colonel said.

Eveleen said quietly, "Any evidence of the vanished team turn up?"

The Colonel shook her head. "At that point, of course, new orders

superseded the old priority, and our team searched. Except for the
remains of the biologist, there was no forensic evidence whatsoever, not
for many miles. Either they were buried on one of the other islands, or
they just vanished. Our search team widened their circles of exploration
until time and supplies ran out, and they were forced to return home."

"Grim," Ross admitted. "So where do we come in?"

Kelgarries said, "As the Colonel mentioned, the Baldies did severe

damage to their bases and equipment a while back. They are still
recovering."

"Slowly—too slowly," the Colonel said, her frustration evident in her

voice. "Our government does not want to give us funds without results,
and we cannot produce results if we do not have the funds to continue our
work. So much of our energy has been forced into reconstruction!" She
spread her hands, then shrugged. "And so, when the Major contacted us
with the proposal to share information, we came instead to ask for help."

"Which we plan to give," Milliard said. "This planet is obviously

important—only the treaty, which gave the data to you, according to the
division of the spools, has kept us from exploring it further. We, too,
would like to learn more about that spaceport, and maybe the Baldies. If
we can solve some of the mysteries about them, we might be able to

defend ourselves better against them, should their attention come this way
again. And we have to assume that it will."

Ashe tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. "I agree. The only

protection we have, and it's mighty slim, is our second-guessing their
assumption that in destroying the Russians' bases they dissolved any
Terran threat. But they might find evidence of us elsewhere—"

"Or they might just decide to come back here and mess around again

with the primitive natives," Ross finished sourly. "I'm with you. So, what's
the plan?"

"That my best agents go back with a Russian team to the starport

planet, and find the missing Russians—and whatever information you
can," Kelgarries said, grinning.

"Three of us?" Ross asked, indicating himself, Eveleen, and Gordon.

"No," the Major said. "Four agents from our agency will join four

Russian Time Agents. Our fourth will not be American, however. I've other
excellent operatives, from projects you three know little about. One of
them seems fated to be assigned to this project."

"Fated?" Ross and Eveleen spoke together, looked at each other, and

laughed.

"Fated," the Major said.

He reached behind the desk and carefully pulled out an archaeologist's

specimen box. Ross could see Cyrillic lettering on the side.

Kelgarries looked over at the Colonel, as if for permission, and when the

Russian nodded, he opened the box. With reverent care he removed a
small piece of what looked like dark wood.

"The Russian science team found this in the rubble at the library

building. It was buried deeply—they found it after a week of careful sifting
for artifacts."

He held it up, and Ross saw that it was indeed wood,

carved—ancient-looking. A closer examination showed a woman's face.
Human, singularly beautiful, and incredibly detailed. Ross, glancing at it,

felt that he'd know the model on sight, were he ever to see her.

Just then a quiet beep sounded in the room. The Major moved to the

desk computer and looked down at the message pad at the corner of the
terminal. "Ah," he said, "just in time." He looked up. "Ross, you and
Eveleen will go back as partners. Gordon, meet your new partner."

At that moment, the door opened, and a tall, well-built woman walked

through the door. Dressed in an expensive business suit, the woman
moved with grace and assurance.

Ross looked up into her night-dark face, her black eyes, and he

swallowed against sudden shock.

"Professor Saba Mariam," the Major went on. "These are Colonel

Vasilyeva…" He went on with the introductions, which Ross barely heard.

Instead, he tried to process the fact that this woman and the carving

had exactly the same face.

CHAPTER 3

GORDON ASHE SIGHED as he sank back into an upholstered chair.

He and Ross were alone, finally.

Eveleen had volunteered to show Saba around the facility; Ross flopped

down and idly flicked on a video.

Ashe just sat. The eternal full-spectrum lighting in the den of the suite

they'd been assigned gave no hint at the time. Gordon did not need to turn
his aching neck to glance at the clock in order to know that it was late. His
body knew it, his mind knew it.

The rest of the Russians—all except one—had arrived shortly after Saba,

and Milliard had called a break for dinner, saying that they could all get
acquainted over a meal.

Gordon hated that kind of gathering, banal chatter between people who

did not trust one another, but who were forced by circumstance into the
pretense that they did.

He'd managed to exchange half a dozen painfully polite comments with

his new partner, and fewer with the new Russians. A poor reward for what
had seemed an interminable meal. Boredom and stress combined to give
him a headache.

"Okay," Ross said, killing the video with a careless swipe of his scarred

hand. "I can feel your mood from here. Spit it out."

"I'm just tired," Gordon said.

"And?" Ross prompted.

"And so what part of 'I'm just tired' is unclear?" Gordon said, knowing

that when he resorted to sarcasm, he belonged in bed, asleep.

Ross just laughed at him. "You don't want a woman as a partner. Go

on, admit it."

Gordon shut his eyes and leaned his head against the back of his chair.

"You were so polite to Saba at dinner," Ross went on inexorably. "You

sure as hell weren't to me when we first met. You only fall back on that
lady-and-gentleman routine when you're peeved. Dead giveaway, Dr.
Ashe."

Gordon sighed. "Not peeved. Not that. Too strong a word."

"So what's wrong with Saba? She's got intellectual qualifications

enough to spare for three scholars—Professor of Musicology in Addis
Ababa, plays a dozen musical intruments at concert level, knows Western
classical music as well as Ethiopian, which, I'm told, is ancient and
fascinating both. And she's made a couple jumps on super-secret African
missions, one of which involved Baldy interference at about the time we
tangled with them, so it's not like she's ignorant of that aspect of our job."

"It's not Saba," Gordon said. "Her credentials are better than mine, and

she's probably everything Kelgarries claims, and more. But…"

"She's female?" Ross prompted.

Gordon sighed again. "I'm not against women in the Project—despite

the way I was raised. The last of my old prejudices was knocked out of me

when I first met Eveleen's former boss and thought I'd better go easy on
this tiny, gray-haired lady martial-arts instructor, and she proceeded to
dry-mop the practice mats with me. I know that our female agents are
every bit as bright, as courageous, as capable as we are. But a partner…
living in such close proximity with one. Especially a highly cultured,
refined one."

Gordon remembered the appraisal in those beautiful dark eyes. She'd

looked at him with the same intellectual curiosity one might give a fossil,
and a not very interesting one at that.

He knew such a judgment might be unfair. It could very well be that

she was as reserved as he was; he had no idea what kind of impression his
own expression had conveyed. Probably lousy, he decided, grimacing.

Meanwhile, Ross chuckled. "Don't tell me. You think Saba won't be

inspired by the vision of you in the morning with a night's stubble on your
face and your clothes rumpled and mussed? And then there are the
niceties of who gets the bathroom—or what passes for a bathroom on
these luxury jaunts to the past—first?"

"All right, all right." Gordon grimaced. "Enough needling."

Ross was still grinning. "It's just that you're being absurd. Believe me, I

had all that to contend with on Hawaika and Dominion, and the women
managed pretty much like the men do."

"But I'm not used to it," Gordon said. "My experience, even my studies,

all pertained to prehistory, when women's movements were largely
curtailed, and thus few female agents made the jaunts. It's what I'm used
to, good or bad."

"Then it's high time you got used to something new," Ross retorted

heartlessly. "You won't find any sympathy here, boss. You're the one who
told me—on my first mission—that we learn or we petrify. And you know
we're going to need Saba's skills too much, from what few hints the
Russkis dropped about our mission. She's perfect for this jaunt, and we've
got lives to save."

"All right," Gordon said. "I concede."

"And if our positions were reversed, you would have just fed me the

very same line," Ross went on. "Okay. I'm done lecturing."

"Then I'll get some sleep," Gordon said, rising from his chair. "What

seems impossible at night is often merely improbable by morning."

Ross laughed and flicked the video back on. "Night, Gordon."

ROSS WATCHED GORDON Ashe close the door to his room. He shook

his head, then sank back on the couch. There was an action video on, one
of the latest releases thoughtfully provided by the Project, but Ross found
his mind wandering.

Too much had happened that day. Russians as allies—the prospect of

visiting a planet that he'd profoundly hoped he'd lever see again—Gordon's
dilemma.

Going on a mission, which could be dangerous, with his wife.

He winced. He could talk over with Eveleen all three of the first set of

problems, and he'd welcome her fair-mindedness and acute observations.
If he brought up his last worry, it would only annoy her. She'd see it as a
mistrust of her abilities, but he didn't feel any mistrust on that score. He'd
seen her competence proved too many times; in hand-to-hand combat, in
fact, she was better than he.

No, having women along as partners didn't bother him.

What bothered him was something he'd never thought to feel—the

protective instinct fostered by love. He'd been a loner his entire life, and
he'd only had himself to worry about. Now everything had changed, his
entire worldview had changed. He still had nightmares about that terrible
day on Dominion when Eveleen's mount had fallen on her, nearly killing
her. Until he knew she would pull through he'd thought his own life would
end.

This, he felt, he couldn't discuss with Eveleen. It was too hard to

articulate—too easy to misstate himself, and create a misunderstanding.
He didn't really trust words, when it came right down to it. He trusted
action.

At the same time he knew if anything happened to her, he wouldn't

survive it. He'd rather disaster strike him first. It would be easier to take.

He wouldn't discuss it with Kelgarries or Milliard either; he wouldn't

refuse the mission, not when they needed him, and to bring up what
seemed like complaints went against his own code of honor. So why bring
it up at all?

Instead, just after dinner—when everyone was still standing around

outside of Milliard's office, waiting for coffee, and chattering about
nothing—he'd checked the computer records that he had access to. He'd
found two other married agent teams on the roster. With an idea of
talking to them he'd checked on their status, to find out that one team was
in Iceland, doing a run that was heavily classified, and the other team was
in South America, training for yet another classified project. He hadn't
had a chance to send then an E-mail inquiry—thinking out the wording
for that would take time—but he sure was tempted.

The door slid open, and Eveleen came in, her stride still full of bounce,

her eyes clear and sparkling.

"Have a good time?" Ross asked.

She bent to kiss him. "Great!" she said. "Saba's one smart lady. She's

going to be a tremendous asset for this mission. She's got a wicked sense
of humor, too. Jokes in that soft voice, with that cultured accent, and a
totally straight face— she was quite funny about how we have ads
everywhere, literally everywhere, in America. And I nearly split my sides
laughing at her assessment of the general-issue 'artwork' on the walls in
the big data-processing room."

"The people down there are supposed to be working, not living in a

museum," Ross protested.

"Work progresses better in congenial surroundings. You know that, I

know that," Eveleen corrected.

"It's not exactly a Beaker-trader cave down there," Ross said, secretly

enjoying setting her off.

Eveleen's eyes narrowed. "No, but you can just imagine who did the

decor. Some government functionary who wanted to save a few pennies on
the budget and bought those awful prints at a bargain sell-off from some

super-cheap department store. 'Order me artwork in earth tones to match
the chairs and cubicle dividers.' And then those pictures are nailed to the
walls, as if anyone would even think of walking off with one!"

Ross finally gave vent to his laughter. "All right, all right. So we

Americans are cultural no-tastes and upstarts. Come on, let's hit the sack.
If we don't get some shut-eye, we'll be sorry tomorrow."

"She's not a snob, Ross," Eveleen said quickly, twining her fingers in his

as they walked to their room. "It's just that Ethiopia is such an old culture.
She can't help seeing us from a vastly different worldview."

"All I know is, we've got a vastly different worldview to start cramming

into our brains tomorrow," he said. "Or should I call that universe-view?"

Eveleen laughed.

ROSS WAS STILL thinking about that conversation the next morning.

He rose early, while Eveleen still slumbered, and went straight to the

gym. His years of experience with Project Star's routines made the next
day's schedule predictable: he and the others would spend hours sitting
around and listening to field tapes.

Ross did a lot better riding desks for long stretches after a session with

the machines and on the practice mats.

As he worked he wondered about the success of this assignment they'd

been forced into. Impatience gnawed at him, the more maddening
because there was no single person to blame. Milliard and Kelgarries both
had been sincere in their regrets for the curtailed honeymoon. They were
both plain-spoken men, honest, and hardworking. They did not demand
more of the agents than they demanded of themselves.

Yet the truth was, Ross did not want to go blasting across the galaxy in

a ship designed and made for unknown beings, to a planet as weird as it
was dangerous. He wouldn't want to go again with other Americans he
knew; double that a bunch of Russians; and triple that for going with his
wife.

"Dammit," he snarled, and sent a punishing roundhouse kick to the

padded target. The sound he made was a satisfying whump! but the top of
his foot stung.

Wincing, he glanced at the clock—and realized how late it had gotten.

He was still in a frosty mood when he dashed out of the gym, his wet hair
cold.

Down the hall to the main corridor—and at the sight of two people he

stopped short.

One, a tall man with long blond hair, had his arms around the other.

And the other was Eveleen.

CHAPTER 4

LIGHTNING FLASHED THROUGH Ross's brain.

He wasn't aware of crossing the hall. Suddenly he was next to them,

drawing in his breath preparatory to choking the life out of that
yellow-haired sleazebag, but then Eveleen stepped back, her arms moving
with calm deliberation.

Somehow she was outside the guy's grip—and somehow she was also

between Ross and his target.

"Ross," Eveleen said with determined cordiality. "Allow me to introduce

you to Mikhail Nikulin. The last of the Russian team," she added, with just
enough emphasis to keep Ross from moving, or speaking. Her head
turned, and in the same voice she said to the newcomer, "My husband.
Ross Murdock."

Nikulin raised his hands and stepped back, miming surprise. "Now,

why is it that the most beautiful ones are always taken first? And I
thought it so promising a beginning." His accent was strong, but his
English was quite good.

Ross realized his jaw was clenched so hard his teeth hurt. He forced

himself to relax. The desire to punch that challenging grin was almost
overwhelming, but he had to control it. Nothing had happened.

Nothing had happened.

"I had hoped to meet you eventually, Ross Murdock," the fellow went

on. He talked in a lazy drawl that did not fool Ross for a second; the guy's
stance, the assessment in his gaze, made it clear he was quite ready for
any sort of action Ross might offer.

He knew who she was, Ross realized. And, He did that on purpose.

It made him angry all over again, but at the same time he had to admit

it was a fast way of testing the territory.

"We have heard much about your experiences," Nikulin went on, still

with the smile and the appraising gaze. "There are questions I have. We
shall share a drink and talk, you and I."

Ross forced himself to shrug, and to speak. He was glad his voice came

out sounding natural. "We shall sit and listen to a lot of tapes—and sooner
than later."

"It's true, we are a bit late," Eveleen said. Ross did not mistake the

relief in her eyes. "If you will follow this way, Mr. Nikulin."

"Misha Petrovich," the man corrected. "You must call me Misha."

Eveleen slid her arm into Ross's and led the way. Misha fell in on her

other side, his long stride easy. Ross glanced over, still saw that readiness,
caught sight of callused palms. This Misha had obviously seen plenty of
action. Ross then comprehended what he'd said, and realized that he was
not unknown to the Russians.

So was Misha Petrovich Nikulin Ross's Russian counterpart?

The thought did not give Ross any added pleasure in the prospect of

this mission.

They reached one of the all-purpose rooms where they found Kelgarries

and the rest of the team—Russian, Ethiopian, and American—waiting.
Ross saw the short Russian woman he'd met at the dinner the night before
(what was her name? Irina something?) smile for the very first time. She
greeted Misha in fast Russian. As the tall blond guy sauntered over to talk
to his group, Eveleen squeezed Ross's arm.

He turned his attention to her.

She whispered, "You let me handle him."

"He knew who you were," Ross said—angry all over again.

"Of course he did," she whispered back. "It's a verbal martial-arts

trick—he wants you off-balance. And as long as you come snorting around
like a bull before a red cape, he's going to keep pestering me." She
grinned. "Think of it as a compliment to your reputation. It is, after all, in
a kind of backhanded way."

"If he wanted to compliment me, he could have said, 'Nice work! Glad

to have you on the mission.' Or is that unknown in Russia?"

Eveleen gave a soft laugh, but then she whispered more firmly, "I

repeat: you let me handle him."

"Please," Kelgarries said. "We need to get started. Everyone, please find

a desk."

Ross gritted his teeth again. This mission was already a disaster as far

as he was concerned. But he spotted his own laptop waiting, and dropped
down behind the desk where it lay. Sitting next to it was a pair of
earphones.

Gordon Ashe had the desk next to his. Eveleen had gone over to sit near

Saba Mariam.

"All right. We will begin with the tapes found in the Time Capsule. On

your terminal, you'll see choices for your language preference. My people:
you know the drill," Kelgarries said. "For the benefit of our visitors, let me
explain how we usually proceed. We'll listen all the way through just once.
Feel free to make notes. When we're done, we'll begin again, this time
stopping for questions and explication. But we all need a basis from which
to start, so without any further talk, let's proceed."

Ross settled into his chair, yanked his laptop over, and plugged it into

the database terminal. As he pulled the headphones on, he stole a look at
his wife; she had her head supported in her hands, her favorite listening
position. To all appearances she had forgotten the existence of the blond
Russian.

Ashe was already making notes, as was Saba. Interesting. The Russians

all sat, polite and impassive. They'd heard this before, of course.

The tape began. The translator's voice was a bland, professional actor's

voice. "This begins the Record of Exploration Team A, recorded by
Katarina Semyonova, team archivist. Day One. We have just arrived…"

Ross looked down, saw his hand tapping on his laptop case. He stopped

it, and sat up straight. He was restless, but didn't want to show it.

He wasn't just annoyed with that blasted Russian version of Don Juan.

He also hated the beginnings of these Project tapes. It was always the
same: the recordings went on in great detail about every single thing,
most of which usually turned out to be insignificant later, when the team
had gathered more data.

"… what seem to be feathered cats."

Ross grinned to himself. Feathered cats! He remembered those. Now,

that was one weird thing. What kind of biological niche would feathered
cats possibly fit into?

Ross looked down at his laptop and typed out a quick note. You never

know, he thought, what details turn out not to be insignificant later.

When he was done typing, he turned his attention to his

earphones—and discovered that the Russians had already made their
jump into the past. He listened closely—and sure enough, the voice
reported that their biologist had gone missing.

The Russians, because of time pressure and a lack of clues so far, had

regrouped into doubles and proceeded more cautiously, their priorities
being to search for their missing member and to stay hidden.

About a week into their stay in the past, Ross felt his mind wandering

again—returning to the feathered cats. Feathered cats—what purpose
could they serve? How would they evolve?

The voice changed suddenly, and Ross caught the end of a real surprise.

"… no evidence of the winged folk, contrary to what we had been led to

believe from the tapes of the American Expedition. But this is our third
sighting of the beings we call, for lack of data, the weasel folk—as the

Americans did. Only at night, and within the great city, have we seen
them. During the day, we have seen other beings, but no weasel folk. We
have not made ourselves known as yet, though again, unlike what the
Americans reported on their tapes, these beings exhibit no signs of
aggressive behavior…"

Weaslies? No winged beings?

Had someone else gone back in time and caused a major rupture in the

timeline? But everything else had checked out—

Ross shook his head, as if to chase away his thoughts. That was the

problem with time travel, all the blasted ramifications. It was enough to
give any super-scientist a brain sprain, much less an everyday guy.

So Ross decided not to think. He turned his attention back to the tape,

and this time he kept his attention on the bland voice detailing a daily
load of new surprises.

CHAPTER 5

WHEN THE TAPE was done, the first question was from Ross, which

did not surprise Eveleen. "The Weaslies are the dominant culture?"

Eveleen bent her head, hiding a smile. Her husband was an

acknowledged top agent, brave, intelligent, and altogether wonderful—but
he was also impetuous, impatient of rules, and a maverick.

And she adored him for it.

Kelgarries's hatchet face didn't change in expression, but Eveleen

sensed very strongly that he was trying to hide a smile. Some of the
Russians looked a little startled at the outburst. Only Ashe remained, at
least outwardly, unmoved— he and Saba both, she noted belatedly.

"Yes," Kelgarries said. "You are correct."

"But the winged people in the ruined tower were still there in the

present," Ross stated. "Are still there."

"Yes, they are," the Colonel affirmed.

"And the Weaslies are still feral."

"Again, you are correct."

Kelgarries went on, when the Colonel sat back, "So we can assume that

the timeline has not been tampered with— though I guess we'll never
really know. But for our purposes, we can assume not."

Ross sighed, clapping down the lid on his laptop. "Weaslies. When I

think of that fight we had—well, this is beginning to look like a puzzle
where half the pieces are missing. These Weaslies in the past sound like
some kind of ancient Chinese culture, only even older and more
stratified—so what happened? There was sure no sign of any culture at all
when we met 'em."

"The violence is there," Eveleen spoke. "Remember the biologist, whose

only crime seems to have been to enter an enclave without identity or
place. How did all that change so drastically?"

"That's one of the mysteries we are going to have to solve," Ashe spoke

up.

Ross groaned theatrically, clutching his head. "I don't think we're the

ones to send. This is sounding more and more like a case for a regiment of
brainiacs. Not a handful of agents."

Kelgarries shook his head—echoed by the Colonel.

"No. These people—we may as well get used to their term,

Yilayil—would, to all appearances, not tolerate being studied. We need
skilled agents—yourselves—to adapt to their culture in the ways outlined
by the missing team, and work from within."

"But it sounds like we're going to be a cross between servants, and…

and house pets!" Ross protested.

A soft laugh and a swift exchange of Russian reminded Eveleen of the

presence of Misha Nikulin. She did not turn her head. Her long years of
martial-arts training had already inured her to certain types of men—of
which Project Star inevitably had its fair share. One sure way to provoke
Mr. Nikulin would be to look at him—a glare just as much as a smile
would be equally challenging.

"Being house pets is an easier assignment than running after

mastodons in winter, wearing nothing but a wolfskin mini skirt and a coat
of grease," Ashe said, laughing.

Saba smiled slightly. Eveleen caught her glance, and Saba's smile

increased.

The Russians were now deep in conversation, the Colonel illustrating

something. Ashe leaned over to speak with Kelgarries and Ross.

Under cover of the other conversations, Saba murmured softly, "Your

husband. Very like my first partner, Lisette Al-Aseer." Saba's dark eyes
were difficult to read. Humor? Sadness? Eveleen sensed a little of both.

"Tell me about her," Eveleen whispered back.

Saba gave a little shrug. "She was just as impetuous. Always in trouble

with the authorities—while pulling off brilliant coups. I learned a great
deal from her."

"Where is she now?" Eveleen asked.

"One of the first ones sent off-world," Saba answered, her expression

now sober. "I have had no word for over two years. In the data banks she's
listed as 'On Assignment' and whatever that assignment is has been
classified beyond my level."

Eveleen nodded. If anything had happened to Saba's friend, the other

agents might never find out. There was too deep a need for secrecy;
though the world knew about space exploration, the governments had
made a concerted effort to keep all hints of news about time travel from
ever reaching the media. The chance of unscrupulous individuals getting
hold of a time machine for their own uses was too great a danger.

So the Project was veiled in secrecy, and that meant strict data control

even among agents, always judged on a need-to-know basis.

Unfortunately.

As Kelgarries paused to answer a question from one of the Russians,

Eveleen thought back over the night before. While Ross had been watching
his video, she'd been in the library using the E-mail to query the three

teams of married agents that she had found after a quick scan through the
data banks.

I'm so used to taking care of myself, she thought as Kelgarries, the

Russian with the query, and the Colonel now talked in quiet voices.

Eveleen felt a little sad to have even one secret so early in a marriage,

but she hesitated to discuss this with Ross— especially after seeing his
reaction at Misha's absurdity.

What good would telling him do, except make him worry? Men had

been blithely launching into action for millennia. Women had been equal
partners with men relatively recently—but they had been champion
worriers since the dawn of time. Better to ask some married couples with
more experience in partnerships under dangerous conditions how they
coped with the fear of loss of a partner.

She watched Ross typing notes into his laptop, a little frown between

his brows.

I'd rather get lost than lose him, she thought bleakly, and then scolded

herself for defeatist thinking. The idea was to keep them both safe.

Kelgarries looked up then. "The Colonel suggests that we might actually

speed the training along if we split for the language-assimilation portion.
We'll get together again when we start training for specific positions on
the world. Gordon? Summation?"

Gordon Ashe looked up. "I'll give us all a quick synopsis of what kind of

civilization we're looking at, so we can keep the worldview in mind as we
crash-learn it in pieces."

He cleared his throat.

"One. The Yilayil people are the dominant culture, a hyper-complex

civilization trying to maintain the diversity of an interstellar culture
that—for some reason—has no new entries showing up. But the process for
assimilation has already begun, through a complex of behaviors that are
both cultural and ritualistic, called ti[trill]kee—" He whistled the middle
part with difficulty. "It seems to mean deportment, but it's more than just
that; it's a way of life accepted by all, and deviation, once one has been
accepted by the Yilayil, is not tolerated. Since there is no mention in the

Time Capsule of the winged people, we must assume they arrived later—"

"From a crashed spaceship, perhaps?" one of the Russians asked,

enunciating carefully in English. "Or from one of the islands on the far
side of the planet from the spaceport?"

"It is a possibility, though unlikely—not if they have any kind of culture

with technical capabilities," the Colonel said. "When our globe ship
skirted the planet, we did energy readings. Energy use is uniformly low,
except on the island containing the spaceport. There it is exceptionally
high."

Kelgarries said, "We assume from the observable drive to conformity

that any other race with technical capabilities is eventually drawn to the
capital island and conformity in order to have access to data and
technology."

"The flyers are not tech-capable in the present timeline," Ross spoke up.

"Of course, none of the three races we encountered were. They were a lot
more civilized than those feral humanoids or the Weaslies."

"The flyers might be indigenous and hidden, and might be latecomers.

We will be looking for clues, of course," Ashe said, nodding. "Second: the
Yilayil are the only nocturnal land-living intelligence on the planet, and all
the diurnal creatures exist lower in the cultural hierarchy, locked into
rigid castes that determine their status and duties. Divergence means
ostracism; obedience is rewarded with privileges which translate to
various forms of wealth, leisure, etc."

Ashe stopped, looking around for questions. No one spoke, but Ross

frowned, flexing his scarred hand. Eveleen bit her lip.

Ashe said, "Ross?"

The scarred hand balled into a fist, and then opened. Eveleen watched

her husband force his feelings behind a polite mask as he said, "It sounds
a little like we're expected to fit into a society of robots."

"Not robots," Ashe said, smiling. "If they were, there would not be a

question of conformity, would there?"

"Conformity," Ross repeated, grimacing. "I have to admit that's what

sticks in my craw. Conformity seems another word for—" He looked over
at the Russians, and Eveleen saw Misha nod and give Ross a thumbs-up.

It was an unexpected gesture. Eveleen was relieved to see Ross flick a

hand up in salute. Then he went on, "I don't know what. Main thing is, I
didn't catch who decides if any given race has 'conformed' properly."

"That's because the First Team didn't say." Ashe sat back, scanning his

notes. "Until we find out, we can assume that the Yilayil decide. Anything
more to add?"

Ross shook his head.

"Then I'll continue with the Yilayil," Gordon said. "They dwell in

tunnels and caves, vast spaces underground. At first they had seemed
unable to deal with the sudden appearance of the First Team whose place
of origin they—obviously— couldn't figure out. This is important to
remember: they are, of course, aware of other races—we will apparently
meet several—and their way of dealing with them has been to assimilate
them into the hierarchy through ti[trill]kee. Every race has its enclave
somewhere on the world—yet the spaceport on the main island is closed,
so no new ones are coming in. We don't know if this is by accident or
design. We will have to find out."

He paused. Again, no questions.

"As for interaction, the races are segregated, save for a single

exception: the mysterious House of Knowledge— which, apparently, is
what Ross and I called the library— where the Russians found that
carving."

Eveleen cast another quick glance at Saba. It was clear what her job

would be: she'd have to penetrate the House of Knowledge, to learn what
she could about the missing Russians. The evidence was already there, if
the carving could be believed, that Saba had been there. Her visit had
already happened—hopefully safely.

What is my job to be? Eveleen thought.

She looked down to hide a grim smile.

She'd find out soon enough.

SABA EXCUSED HERSELF from dinner as early as was polite, and left

the common room. Much as she enjoyed watching the impetuous
Americans strive to find congenial topics to discuss with the reserved,
rather dour Russians—and the way the two male agents, Misha and Ross,
watched each other speculatively when the other was not aware—she felt
the pressure of time tightening the muscles on the back of her neck.

She'd seen the looks on all their faces when a sample from the language

tapes was played. If the stakes had not been so high, she would have
laughed at the restrained disgust of the Russians (who had apparently just
begun struggling with the Russian version of the tapes) to Eveleen's shock
and Ross Murdock's blank despair. Only Gordon Ashe had displayed little
reaction, a slight frown between his brows, his head bowed as he
concentrated.

She crossed the short hallway to her room, turning on the light and her

computer at the same time. Calling up the tapes, she tabbed the sound to
the speakers, and paced back and forth in the tiny space as she listened.

Saba was grateful to Katarina, the unknown but gifted Russian

linguist/archivist on the missing team, for having done a superlative job
on the preliminaries. As it was, learning this language was going to be a
terrific challenge.

The translator's voice began.

"The Yilayil language has one component in common with English: it

seems to be a tremendously flexible language, adopting words from all the
others, altering them and making them its own.

"That is all the Yilayil tongue has in common with English."

And next was an example. The sound was strange, midway between a

whistle and a drone, with ululations and note alterations rather like a
chant, or music, modifying it.

The Yilayil people, with their muzzles that resembled those of earth

weasels, were not likely to make the labial sounds of human languages.
The humans who were to approximate the Yilayil language would first of
all have to know how to whistle—and then would have to learn to hum

while doing it.

But harder, much harder, was the prospect of hearing the language and

then speaking it. Chinese, often regarded as the toughest language to
learn, used to take at least a couple of years for a linguistically gifted
individual; now, with the hypno-tape method used by government
agencies, it took several months. Chinese seemed easy compared to this
utterly alien, bizarrely weird tongue.

Especially since the hypno-tapes she had used until now were complete

and these weren't. These tapes left whole levels of expression fragmentary
and confusing.

And they had a limited time in which to learn it—the duration of their

flight to the planet.

Saba had seen the unspoken reaction in all the others' faces. She knew

it matched her own: dread. Everyone was very aware that the First Team's
lack of knowledge might have been related to why they disappeared.

Luckily Katarina had taped a great deal of indigenous talk—which her

team had been in the midst of studying when they disappeared. Saba, on
hearing her tapes, vowed she was going to master it before planetfall. This
meant that she had to find the key to the language, its music, even though
its speakers had utterly nothing in common with human beings, whose
various language-musics carried subtle but definite similarities.

So she'd better get started right away.

GORDON ASHE LOOKED at Saba's closed door. From beyond it came

faint sounds: he recognized the weird noises of the Yilayil language.
Annoyance and admiration twisted at his guts.

The admiration was easy to acknowledge. He had a lot of respect for

any agent who got right to business when a mission was at hand,
especially one that carried this much firepower. The annoyance… why the
hell couldn't she call them all in and share her expertise? Did she have to
get ahead, just to show off?

He shook his head, hard. No. Stop attributing competitive American

motivations to someone from a totally different culture.

He raised his hand to knock, then sighed. What would he say? Would

he just be interrupting her for little purpose?

Better to get busy with his own tapes, he decided. So he retreated to his

room and fired up his computer.

He paused the tape after that first Yilayil example, then replayed it.

"Weird, isn't it?" Ross spoke from the open doorway.

Ashe turned around, saw Ross and Eveleen standing there.

"Come in," he said. "I take it you had the same idea?"

"I saw Saba leave," Eveleen said, smiling. "Ross and I made a bet she

was itching to get cracking on her tapes."

"Where are the Russians?" Ashe asked.

Ross jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Finished dinner, Colonel gave

them the high-sign, and they vamoosed in a group. My guess is, they're
hunkered down right now with their versions of Katarina's tape. Learn
fast, make the decadent Americans look bad."

"Be fair," Eveleen retorted, elbowing Ross in the side. "That missing

team was their friends. If our friends went missing, we'd do the same."

"I don't want to be fair," Ross said. "I want to be first."

"So much for scheduled recreational time," Eveleen added with a grin.

"We can do recreation on shipboard," Ashe said, and he hit the replay

again.

At the end, Eveleen had a faint crease between her brows. "It's like

chanting, more than speech," she said.

"Speech sounds monotone after it," Ross added, his eyes closed.

"Mellifluous," Eveleen put in. "That's the word I was looking for."

"Mellifluous—or demented?" Ashe said, and activated the tape again.

The translator's voice filled the room: "The normal word order is:

Speaker identity, status, location, time, verb, subject, indirect object,
direct object."

She followed with a trill/drone in Yilayil, then said, in English, "This

is, roughly translated: T, Yeeyee Sight-of-stars, at pathway-meets-water
at dawn offer trade of scent-bearers-from-beyond-sun their gili-blossom
mat."

Ashe paused the tape.

"That takes forever," Ross complained.

"The Yilayil statement took half the time the English translation did,"

Eveleen said. "Are all those flowery things names or noun-identifiers that
you have to invent every time you speak?"

Ashe shook his head. "Too little information yet. Let's listen further."

"This is the word order of neutral statements. There are other word

orders for different challenges and deferences, for commands, for
questions. We will address the matter of questions later, for these
constitute another form entirely: briefly, we have questions of challenge,
questions of debate, questions of personal consequence—"

"Huh," Ross interrupted, rubbing his chin. "What about 'Are my shoes

untied'?"

"That, I imagine, would be a question of personal consequence," Ashe

said, smiling.

"If they wear shoes," Eveleen put in. "Now hush, and let's hear this

thing through, or we'll never get any sleep tonight!"

Ross subsided with a willingness that he had never exhibited to any of

his male partners in the past, and they proceeded through the tape in
silence.

At the end, Ashe shut off his computer, and sat back in his chair.

"Well?"

Ross pursed his lips, and let out a long liquid trill. "Guess we better

practice wetting out whistlers. Think they have beer?"

Eveleen snorted a laugh. "Will you be serious?"

Ross sighed. "I think we're going to go nuts trying to learn that mess. I

can't hear anything but bird-tweeting. Some cabbie I'll be."

"We'll be," Eveleen said. "Just as well we both are assigned to

transportation. One of us is going to have to learn this stuff."

"You learn it. I'll drive." Ross grinned.

Ashe shook his head. "Oh, go to sleep."

CHAPTER 6

"WHAT HAPPENED WITH this new Russian, Misha Petrovich

Nikulin?" Saba asked the next day as Eveleen and she worked out side by
side on the stationary bikes. "Something. There was too much tension
yesterday that I cannot otherwise explain."

"Oh-h-h-h-h yes," Eveleen said, rolling her eyes. "I was just going down

to the training room when I looked up and there was this handsome blond
guy strolling along looking at the door numbers. Before I could open my
mouth to ask him if he needed directions he walked up, introduced
himself, threw his arms around me, and tried to kiss me."

"No warning?"

"Nothing. Because coming along right behind was Ross."

Saba took her lower lip between her teeth. "Did you know this man?"

"Misha? Never saw him before in my life. But I will wager any amount

of money he knew who we were, though he pretended not to. And
furthermore it was not my devastating beauty that brought on that excess
of affection—it was some kind of crazy challenge, because he wasn't the
least surprised to see Ross there."

Saba, to Eveleen's surprise, nodded in agreement. "I know that type. In

truth, I think this agency the world over selects for just that sort—both

male and female. My former partner was like that. I could see her doing
this to your spouse, just to see what would happen."

"And I would probably have decked her," Eveleen admitted. "Yes." She

winced. "You know, I would have. It's all very well to tell Ross that I can
take care of myself, thank you, but instinct is faster than thought, and it
does go both ways."

Saba smiled, her dark eyes steady.

"Huh," Eveleen said. "I hadn't thought of that. Well. One of those

unpleasant little insights that one needs now and again to keep one
humble. I'll remember that, in case Misha starts it up again and Ross
breathes fire."

Saba put her head to one side, but said nothing.

Eveleen gave a sigh, short and sharp, and forced her mind back onto

the job. "Speaking of Russians—and Yilayil challenges. It makes a kind of
sense, if what the Russian linguist surmised is correct, in challenge mode
one gets very flowery— the more challenging, the more oblique. This would
give the other person time to frame a response, and decide who gets
preference, who defers. This must mean that everyday activities require
relatively simple language—not just with outsiders, but among themselves.
Otherwise it just doesn't seem reasonable."

Saba's eyes narrowed as she considered. "I would take care," she said

slowly, "in assuming what might seem reasonable to Yilayil culture.
Especially given the hints of multiple layers to the language, the odd tenses
and sensory aspects."

"I just assumed those were artifacts of a limited data set," said Eveleen.

"Just misunderstood."

"I am not so sure," said Saba carefully. "But, yes, otherwise I do agree

that far: quick modes of speech for the minutiae of everyday business
makes good sense. It does seem, though, that almost every aspect of life
involves a challenge of some kind or other—at least when encountering
beings outside one's own group."

"If a few months' studies can be trusted," Eveleen said. "I keep thinking

of that poor biologist." She winced as she recalled the grief and shock

expressed by Katarina when her team discovered the remains of their
fellow agent, just after they had made their first encounter.

Saba also reacted, her face tightening, her gaze lowered. Eveleen felt the

lance of remorse, and wished she hadn't spoken. She had momentarily
forgotten about Saba's first partner. Did the woman lie in some unknown
grave worlds and centuries away? Or had something wrenched time out of
alignment so that she was forever lost—as had apparently happened to one
of Gordon Ashe's former agents?

Eveleen bit her lip, wondering if Gordon or Saba would talk about that.

They both had this experience in common, but they were both so very
reserved.

Saba looked up, and said in her calm voice, "This has occurred to me as

well. Often. The challenge aspect might be emphasized only with newly
arrived outsiders."

"We'll be getting that treatment," Eveleen said, relieved that the

moment seemed to have passed.

"Perhaps. As for the specifics: most of them sound like they are ritual

challenges, and both sides know the question and answer before it's even
spoken," Saba said. "It's a kind of right-of-way etiquette."

Eveleen nodded, glad that, so far, her instincts were corresponding with

the better-trained Saba's. "And the Russians were still in the early stages
of establishing themselves within the hierarchy, so they were exposed to
the more formal challenge-speech…"

Eveleen thought she heard doubt in the Ethiopian's soft, musical tones.

"Except?" she prompted.

Saba shook her head slightly. "It means little to query at this early

point."

"I know," Eveleen said. "Just for the sake of discussion— and because,

hard as we are working, we're not exactly going anywhere…" She pointed
at their bicycles.

Saba smiled. "All right, then. It does seem to me that the Yilayils do

little that is sudden or impulsive, if what we are learning conveys a true

sense of their culture. And yet we come back to the fact that the First
Team disappeared— abruptly—without any sign or signal."

"That we've yet discovered," Eveleen amended. "When we get back, we

might still find something."

"And, barring that?"

Eveleen bit her lip. "I have to admit it's been bothering me too. I

suppose the problem, if problem there was, might not originate from the
Yilayils at all—but from one of the other races living on the planet. We
don't know anything about these as yet, except for some names and some
superficial characteristics. Our Russians didn't have enough time,
apparently, to learn much of them between the time they made themselves
known and when they disappeared. They spent so much time living in the
jungle outside the city, just watching!"

"And?" Saba prompted.

Eveleen sighed. "Well, I know it's not fair to judge, but I can't help

thinking about what the Yilayils became down at our end of the
timeline—those Weaslies. There certainly was no sign of hierarchy, or
structure, or music, when Ross and Ashe encountered them! Just
bloodshed!"

"I, too, have pondered this," Saba admitted.

Encouraged, Eveleen warmed to her theme. "So far, in every culture I've

studied or encountered, there is at least some trace of the former. But
here—we are presented with the Yilayils, whose culture is intricate in the
extreme. It reminds me of medieval guilds, only much more complex.
Each individual seems to be born into a specific guild, to which they
appear to belong for a lifetime. Their name and location indicates their
guild, family status, and field of mastery—and everyone has a place.
Strangers are not tolerated; they have to be integrated slowly, but
integrated they are. No evidence of war, the Russians said. And yet—we
always come back to this disappearance."

Saba nodded again. "Since it is my lot to go to this House of

Knowledge, I have to hope to find some clues there."

"Except that's another mystery," Eveleen said.

Saba smiled grimly. "When was I there for that statue to be carved? Or

am I going to arrive to find a group of women, from some other planet,
who look just like me—and if so, where might they have come from—and
why?"

Eveleen shuddered. "I know it's cowardly to say so, but I'm glad that my

'skill' is just going to be a cabbie. That is, assuming we get that far."

The timer went off then, indicating the end of the workout. Saba went

off to the showers, but Eveleen lingered. Since this was not officially rec
time, she was hoping to find someone for a good workout on the practice
mats. There was no better stress reliever, she firmly believed, than
sparring and grappling with some feisty martial-arts expert whose skills
were as good as her own.

She moved to the gym—but just as she was opening the door, her pager

buzzed quietly against her wrist. She peeled back her leotard sleeve and
glanced down, then sighed.

Milliard! There was no putting him off.

She showered and changed in record time, then raced to an elevator to

go to the top brass levels.

When she emerged, she found another surprise—Ross was just getting

out of the second elevator.

"Hey," he said, grabbing her hand.

"What's the problem—do you know? Is this meeting an 'uh oh,' or an

'oh yeah'?" she asked, sneaking a peek around the corridor.

"I don't know anything beyond the fact that it's just thou and I, O wife,"

Ross said, grinning.

"So you haven't pounded Misha Nikulin into paste."

Ross laughed. "I haven't even seen him. Besides, you're the

paste-pounder in the family. You could dispose of him faster than I could."

Eveleen nodded, not showing her relief. Especially after her discussion

with Saba, she was doubly glad that she hadn't further hassled Ross about

that disastrous first meeting with Misha, after they'd retired for the night.
Apparently Ross had thought it through on his own. "And don't you forget
it," she said, mock commanding.

No one was in sight. She leaned up for a kiss, then Ross knocked at

Milliard's door.

"Come in."

The big boss was seated behind his desk, his gray hair disheveled as if

he'd just been running his hands through it.

"Something's wrong?" Ross said as he and Eveleen entered and sat

down in the overpadded chairs before the desk.

"Many somethings," Milliard said with a twisted smile. "But that's my

headache. I called you two in for a last-minute talk. I know it's late in the
game, and I'm not sure what to do if there's a problem, but I have to talk
to you if only to ease my own mind."

"We're here," Eveleen said, feeling apprehension.

"If its these Russians," Ross began.

"No." Milliard sighed, shuffling a couple of papers on his desk without

really looking at them. Then he sat back. "I know we railroaded you two
into this project. That's because I desperately want you both there. You're
both in tiptop physical shape—the medicos gave you green lights after
your evaluations following your return from Dominium. But it's been
pointed out to me by several people whose job it is to keep track of these
things that we usually keep married pairs at home flying desk jobs for at
least a year, until they feel their relationship is stable enough for the
intense stress of field-work. You two have barely had a honeymoon. How
do you feel about rushing off right away?"

Eveleen was so surprised she couldn't think. "Is this," she asked with

care, "in reference to specific team members?"

Milliard gave her a quizzical glance. "Not specifically. Has there been a

problem?"

"No," Ross said at the same time as Eveleen said, "No."

They looked at each other and smiled.

Eveleen realized that the incident with Misha had in fact stayed

between the three of them. Four, counting Saba, but Eveleen did not
believe that the Ethiopian woman would have talked about it. So she
considered the question in general.

During her single years the emphasis on the Project had always been

the work at hand. Of course people did socialize—and match up. She'd
dated briefly among the men at HQ during her days as a martial-arts
instructor. She'd even briefly dated outside the Project, knowing that she
could deflect superficial questions about what she did by just claiming to
teach martial arts. Except how could you really get serious with someone
you had to lie to if he asked lots of detailed questions about your career?

Nothing—until Ross—had been serious. And her relationship with him

had begun off-world, away from therapists, psychologists, and other
Project personnel. She'd made her own way, and on her return, had
expected to continue making her own way. It hadn't occurred to her that
there existed an official policy for such contingencies as marriage among
agents.

She looked over at Ross, to find him watching her, and a pang smote

her heart. Was he just now beginning to think along the same tracks that
had worried her?

She wanted to spare him that. "Oh, I don't see a problem," she said,

smiling, infusing her voice with as much confidence as she could.
"Remember, we did have a lot of time together on Dominium, so we know
we can handle fieldwork together."

Ross sat back, drumming one hand idly on his chair arm. "She's right."

He grinned. "And if something happens, I know she can protect me!"

He laughed, Milliard laughed, and Eveleen snorted a laugh as well.

"Are you sure? Any doubts? Because I'd rather pull you off the Project

now, and find some other agents, than put you at further risk—"

"No," Ross said firmly, and—

"No!" Eveleen exclaimed at the very same moment.

Their eyes met and again they laughed.

Ross isn't worried, she thought. That's what I want. I will protect him,

but not in the ways he was joking about.

THE DOOR TO Milliard's office opened, and Gordon Ashe almost ran

into Ross and Eveleen, who were just coming out. Both of the pair were
grinning.

"You too?" he asked.

Ross raised his hands. "We're not in trouble. I promise!"

Eveleen laughed. "Twit," she said, not at all angrily, and the two of

them headed for the elevators.

Ashe walked in, to find the big boss looking tired.

"Case Renfry and Mikhail Nikulin took off for Russia last night with the

load of scientific equipment," Milliard said without preamble. "You
haven't seen Case for a time, but he's been taking intensive training in
Russian. With his background—having gone with you on that first run to
the Yilayil planet—he's been welcomed by the Russian science team to join
their number."

"Good," Gordon said.

"Now. This is the last chance for us to do anything to help you before

you take off." Milliard rubbed his jaw. "Anything you foresee as a
problem?"

"No," Ashe said. "Beyond the usual range of unforeseen disasters that

comes with fieldwork."

"I mean with the personnel," Milliard asked. "Too many untried aspects

to this setup. Could spell success—or a major headache."

Ashe nodded. Pairing Russians and Americans was new, and one didn't

need to be psychic to see that mutual trust was going to take time.
Sending two agents just married was against policy. So was pairing
partners of both opposite genders and different cultures. But, at least so

far, driving necessity fostered the needed mental readjustments.
Except—"Ross and Nikulin might be a problem."

"I suspect that the Colonel was not completely happy with Nikulin

either," Milliard went on. "Which may or may not be why he was only here
one day."

Ashe waited for an explanation, but Milliard just shrugged. "No,

nothing has been said to me. Internal problems, maybe. He's volatile, I've
learned that much. There is also the fact that their agent-base is so small
that they are perforce thrown together for extended years."

Ashe nodded. "Small because of those successful Baldy attacks. That's

got to warp their psyches a little."

"The Colonel says that some of them exhibit what could be called

combat fatigue—but what can they do? They can't hire more agents, not
until they can show their government positive results. So they cope with
the sorts of problems we are able to prevent by reassignment and
protracted leaves, when necessary. To get from general comments to
specifics, the Colonel thinks Nikulin had some kind of relationship with
one of the missing team—and with at least one of the Russians assigned to
your team, as well. He's a loose cannon, Nikulin is. Here's his file. You'll
have to watch out for him—"

Ashe nodded, picking up the folder. He read rapidly through it, then

glanced up. "Right. Or Ross will resolve things his own way. I understand."

"Which brings us to us," Milliard said. "How are you getting along with

Saba?" His eyes narrowed shrewdly.

Ashe thought briefly of the tall, handsome woman. "She's like me," he

said slowly. "All business."

"Good. I don't require you two to become best friends, but I do need

you to work together well. Your lives may be at stake, and you have to be
able to depend on each other."

"I believe I can depend on her," Ashe said, with conviction. "And I try to

be dependable."

"That's all I can ask," Milliard said. "Anything else?"

Ashe shook his head slowly. Anything else would stay within his skull

and not be spoken. It was up to him to solve any problems that arose.

"The Colonel is coming in next; when we've had our interview, if there

are no insurmountable problems, we'll start the clock on takeoff."

"Right." Ashe handed back Nikulin's file and rose from his seat. "Then

I'll get back to work."

He went out, encountering the gray-haired Russian commander as she

emerged from the elevator. She greeted him courteously, then continued
to Milliard's office.

Ashe heard the door close behind her. The elevator door stood open,

but he paused, his hand on the wall, and looked around.

Silence.

Soon he'd be aboard a ship accompanied by Russians— one of whom,

Mikhail Petrovich Nikulin, used to be a major headache to American time
agents back in the bad old days— a pair of newlyweds, and a partner who
seemed as wary of him as he was of her. And he'd be in command of this
jaunt into the past of a planet that was no part of human history.

He'd told Milliard that there were no problems, which wasn't true, but

he promised himself that he'd solve them, which was true. The many
problems of time, logistics, language barriers, and the rest could indeed be
solved. Emotional reactions simply didn't count, not when there were lives
at stake.

But the real truth was, with his best friend now married, he'd never felt

more isolated in his life.

CHAPTER 7

ROSS MURDOCK PEERED out the window of the airliner.

Russia!

He had to shake his head as he looked over the last of the Gulf of

Finland gleaming with gray-green highlights in the weak sun. At home in
the northeastern states, autumn meant chilly, rainy days interspersed with

mellow warm ones, and driving around to view the glorious changing of
the leaves. Here it was already winter—and so it would remain, he was
told, until May.

Who would have thought he would ever set foot in Russia?

He looked around the plane. It was full of tourists, and Russian citizens

going home. He detected a mixture of languages in the chatter.

The rest of his team was scattered throughout the plane. Next to him

Eveleen dozed lightly, a mystery novel in her lap. Two seats behind, Ashe's
sunbleached brown hair was visible. By craning his neck, Ross could see
that the archaeologist was reading a history of St. Petersburg. Ross had
done a little excavation on his own, just before departure. What he'd read
was fascinating, and grim in places. He hadn't realized what an ancient
land Russia was. But then, Ethiopia was even older, he thought, catching
sight of Saba in the next row. She was calmly working away at her laptop
computer, headphones on. Occasionally she glanced out the window. At
the very end of his row he could make out Renfry's thinning hair. The
technical expert was looking down as well, probably busy on his own
laptop.

Ross turned the other way, and looked at Ashe again. Why hadn't he sat

with Saba? He shook his head silently. Not his place to interfere—anyway,
if he did, he'd probably make things worse. But Gordon and Saba didn't
seem to mesh as a team. Ross just hoped this wasn't going to make things
tough when the real action started happening.

The engine noise changed; the plane tipped downward, starting to lose

altitude.

The seat-belt light flashed on, and people murmured as the plane

decelerated, bumping occasionally in the turbulent air currents. Ross
thought about launching from the planet again—not in a U.S. spacecraft,
but in one of those weird alien globe ships. Somehow a little turbulence
didn't seem very scary.

Eveleen woke up, alert within seconds. She clicked her seat belt on, and

yawned.

"Great book, eh?" Ross cracked.

Eveleen grinned. "Actually, it's pretty good. But even the most brilliant

book is not going to keep me awake after only two hours of shut-eye."

Ross shook his head. "Told you that crazy stunt would be a mistake."

"Wrong," Eveleen said. "Not a mistake. Being tired and headachy is

worth it—I really think we started to get to know each other." She nodded
toward some of the Russians, three or four rows back.

Ross grimaced. "We'll be doing that, and plenty, when we're all stuck

together on that blasted fishbowl."

Eveleen grinned unrepentantly. Ross had been against her going out on

their last evening in Washington, D.C., with Saba and some of the
Russians to see some folk dance performance. The weather had been wild,
and as the hours crawled by, he'd prowled restlessly around HQ, sure
they'd met with some accident.

Turned out that they'd gone after the performance to an old dive

frequented by Eastern Europeans, and there they'd drank vodka and
slivovitz, and roared folk songs for half the night. When they returned,
they'd all been tired, tipsy, but the atmosphere of tension had somehow
lessened markedly.

The engines cut in, loud and vibrating, and the plane heeled.

Ross looked down at St. Petersburg, sprawled over the delta of the Neva

River. From the air the old section looked almost like a fairy-tale city, and
as he stared at those onion domes gleaming in the low northern sun, once
again he was struck by a sense of strangeness.

Then the plane touched down, and taxied slowly to the terminal. At

once the cabin was full of chatter as people gathered their belongings and
prepared to disembark.

Their passports stated that they were tourists, but once they reached

the front of the long line, Ross was not surprised to see the official squint
at his passport, look at a computer printout, and wave him out of line. He
waited; Eveleen joined him a moment later, pulling her suitcase on its
wheels.

They were taken to a special room for customs, which was a mere

formality. Ashe and Sabe both joined them, both of them looking
noncommittal as always. Eveleen looked about with undisguised interest
as they were led down corridors and hallways, then out into the wintry sun
and bitterly cold air. Snow drifted lazily as they were waved to an
official-looking car.

The driver loaded their luggage into the trunk, then took his seat

without speaking. Pretty soon they were zooming along the handsome
boulevards of the Admiralty district. Bridges and canals were everywhere
in evidence, amid spectacularly beautiful baroque edifices. To Ross the
buildings looked heavy and solid—the kind of buildings that would
withstand long winters.

"Oh! That's got to be the Hermitage," Eveleen breathed.

"I think so," Gordon said. "The Winter Palace—"

"That is correct," the driver said in heavily accented English. "I give you

little tour before destination."

In silence Ross watched the city slide by. The cars all looked strange,

and despite the cold weather, there was quite a bit of pedestrian and
bicycle traffic about. The buildings really were handsome—most of
them—and he found it quite interesting, very different from any American
city he'd ever seen.

Before long they stopped outside an older stone building with a plain

facade. Ross was just opening his mouth to ask where the rest of their
team might be when he saw another car pull up behind theirs, and the
Russians climbed out, all chattering with a freedom he had never seen
them use back in the States.

Before long they found themselves in a big, warm room with high

ceilings and ancient plaster, drinking sweet, strong coffee out of little glass
cups encased in holders.

Colonel Vasilyeva sat down, smiling broadly. "Welcome to the Russian

Federation," she said. "I apologize for the lack of time for a proper tour.
When we return successfully from our mission, you can be sure we shall
show you everything our city has to offer. Tomorrow morning, early, we
will call for you, and a special train will take us to our destination.
Tonight, we will relax…"

Interesting, Ross thought. She doesn't say anything of the mission that

could be overheard. A habit of caution or necessity?

Then he thought about how he'd act if they were located in a hotel

somewhere in the States. He wouldn't be blabbing either.

"… supper, and afterward you have free time," she was saying.

Gordon Ashe said, "We'll use that time to work on our studies, if that is

possible."

The Colonel nodded soberly. "We will provide equipment with

headphones."

"Thank you," Gordon said, sliding a glance from under his brows at

Saba, who nodded, her demeanor calm as always.

"Then if there are no further questions, you may establish yourselves in

your rooms, and meet back here for supper," the Colonel said, rising.

Five minutes later, Ross and Eveleen stood in their room, which was

another with very high ceilings. Ross stared round at the remainders of
some unknown Russian's aristocratic past in the moldings at the edges of
the walls and around windows. The plaster was old, and the furnishings
sparse, plain, but comfortable. A radiator hissed quietly in a corner.

Eveleen went to the window and gazed out over the Russian rooftops.

She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, silent, looking pensive.

"Problem?" Ross asked, watching her.

She smiled back over her shoulder. "Nothing more serious than trying

to decide if I want a workout to stretch the kinks from my muscles after
that long plane flight, or if I would rather get a shower."

Ross prowled the perimeter of the room, inspecting the doors. One

revealed a small closet, almost a little room; he flicked a low-voltage light
on to illuminate a bathroom, complete with tub on feet. "I don't think a
shower is an option," he said.

Eveleen appeared at his shoulder, and grinned. "If the water pressure is

anything like Vera warned me, I guess my dilemma is solved." So saying

she turned on the faucet full blast, and they both watched the thin stream
of gently steaming water.

"It's going to take a while for that tub to fill," Ross said.

Eveleen snapped her fingers. "Workout first."

Ross sighed. "I'll turn on the Yilayil tape. We can whistle as we work."

Eveleen groaned and threw a pillow at him.

DINNER WAS NOTICEABLY different from meals in America.

The food was spicy and interesting, but that wasn't what caught at

Ross's attention. They'd been joined by more Russians—but somehow Ross
began to see them in a different light, and it wasn't just Renfry's ability to
speak with them that made the difference.

Back in America, Colonel Vasilyeva and these four of her agents had

been quiet, polite, and had moved as a group. Except for that damned
Nikulin, Ross hadn't really considered the Russians as individuals; he'd
looked on them as a kind of unit, and their tight silence had underscored
his own lack of trust.

All he'd known about these people was that three of them were the

Russian time agents. One, the lanky, bespectacled Valentin Svetlanin, was
a scientist.

Back on their home territory, the Russians seemed changed people. Or

maybe it was that night out; Ross couldn't imagine Valentin, for example,
roaring folk songs—or any other kind of song—but Eveleen insisted he'd in
fact been the most lively. He not only knew every single song, but
variations on most of those!

Ross wondered if Mikhail Nikulin on his home turf was going to

become even more obnoxious—like challenging someone to a duel with
pistols at dawn?

Better not borrow trouble, Ross thought, and tried to force Nikulin out

of his thoughts.

Instead, he tried to match names with faces.

Vera Pavlova was the redhead who laughed a lot.

Irina Bazarov was short, thin, dark-haired, and subtle-featured. In

America she'd moved with a kind of compact neatness that here—on her
home ground—Ross recognized as grace.

As the conversation got lively, Ross leaned over and whispered to

Eveleen, "That Irina. She into some kind of dance?"

Eveleen's brows arched. "Ballet." She grinned. "About as many years as

I studied martial arts. If not more."

Ross awkwardly whistled the Yilayil equivalent of praise.

And from the doorway came another whistle—liquid and pure, and

correct in intonation.

"Misha!" the cry went up from the Russians.

Misha lounged against the doorjamb, his coat slung over his shoulder,

his shirt open at the neck. Ross eyed the familiar waving blond hair and
rakish smile, trying to hide his instant reaction of dislike and distrust.

Misha laughed, said something in Russian, then immediately turned to

Saba and Eveleen, bowing debonairly. Ross forced himself to just sit, but
inwardly he thought, If that jerk tries to smooch either of them, Eveleen
had better paste him one, or else I will.

"So much beauty in my beautiful country! It is poetry for the senses."

He kissed Saba's hands, and then, sending a laughing glance Ross's way,
bent and kissed Eveleen's as well.

Eveleen snorted a soft laugh, and then took her hands back.

Misha turned to the group and said, "I was sent along, obedient dog

that I am, to guard the equipment the Americans contributed. But I
assure you I was most diligent with my tapes. So, how far are the rest of
you in this accursed tongue?" And he added a fast phrase in Yilayil,
whistling and droning expertly.

Ross saw Eveleen whispering a translation to herself; he didn't even try.

On the other side of the room the Colonel nodded once in silent approval,
and then Saba leaned forward and responded, her intonations correct, as
far as Ross could hear. Ashe added a short phrase.

"Chalk one up for us," Ross muttered under his breath.

Eveleen smothered a grin behind her hand. "I wonder if we'll find out if

he was sent because he was in trouble or because he's the expert?" she
whispered back.

"Somehow I doubt the second choice—despite the grandstanding." Ross

leaned forward to sip more of the strong Russian coffee.

"Are we ready?" Misha asked, looking around.

"We leave tomorrow," Vera, the redhead, said. "You timed your arrival

close, Misha."

"Ah, Zina said she'd have my ears for breakfast if I was late." Misha

dropped into a waiting chair.

Ross glanced over at Colonel Vasilyeva; though she had, at the very first

dinner, invited everyone to call her "Zina" he'd found her too formidable
for that. But she smiled now, the kind of smile a fond parent would bestow
on a favorite child.

Irina leaned over to touch Misha's arm, and she addressed him in rapid

Russian.

"English," Vera said quickly, giving Irina a look of challenge.

Misha sat back, smiling. "Not a way to show our gratitude for the

technical gifts, yes?"

Viktor Ushanov, one of the other time agents, said something quietly in

Russian, and Misha sent an appraising glance at Ashe and Ross, all the
irony gone from his face.

"English, English," the Colonel said. "Tomorrow we all begin speaking

Yilayil, but tonight, we relax, and we practice the tongue of our guests."

The rest of the dinner conversation was innocuous; after dinner was

over, while everyone was milling around the coffee service, Ross made his

way to Ashe. "Did you get what was going on when our new boy came in?"

"Nothing bad," Gordon said. "My Russian is pretty rusty, but it was

pretty clear that Valentin is coming down hard on our side. He's the young
hotshot tech, and I guess Milliard gave the Russians everything they asked
for, equipment-wise."

Ross nodded trying for fairness. "No small item, if they're still

recovering from what the Baldies did to 'em."

Gordon nodded, his manner approving, then turned away.

The rest of the evening, Ross circulated, trying to get a feel for these

new team members. The mission was beginning to take on a sense of
reality at last.

The two oldest agents, one man and one woman, spoke very poor

English. They were also the quietest and most dour—like Russian agents of
old stories, almost, though both were in fact scientists, and would be
staying at the base camp in the present, monitoring the time-transfer
equipment and making tests. Still, Ross learned their names: Gregori
Sidorov and Elizaveta Kaliginova.

The rest spoke English with varying abilities, as they all chatted about

scientific developments and some of the problems endemic to secret
governmental projects. Nothing classified or politically touchy—just the
sometimes funny logistical glitches and exasperating hassles inevitable
when dealing with bureaucrats. Those were apparently universal. Renfry
became quite loquacious—willingly trading stories with his Russian tech
counterparts. From there they moved on to subjects of general interest:
movies, television, music, sports.

When the evening ended, Ross was in a good mood.

As he and Eveleen settled into their room, he asked, "So what did you

think?"

Eveleen went to the window again, looking out. Then she turned

around. "A whole evening of just chatter, but I don't think the time was
wasted."

Ross grinned. "That Colonel—Zina. I've got to get used to that. She's no

fool."

Eveleen nodded. "The other night, at the folk festival. Tonight.

Somehow these Russians seem less and less like aliens, and more like, well,
like us."

"Human," Ross said.

"Considering where we're going," Eveleen added, "that's a distinction

that might just preserve our lives."

CHAPTER 8

WHEN THE BLEAK sun rimmed the eastern horizon the next day,

Gordon Ashe and his Eastern and Western agency colleagues were
squeezed onto worn bench seats aboard a rattletrap of a cargo plane that
might have seen service during the Second World War.

He looked down through a window at St. Petersburg dwindling rapidly

away between two huge bodies of water, then the plane banked and
headed north.

Conversation was minimal; the plane was not heated, and everyone

seemed to prefer huddling into their coats, sipping at warm drinks. Just
as well. Gordon sat back, watching his breath cloud, as he considered the
twist their fortunes had taken.

Were there going to be problems with Misha and Ross? Young as he

was, Misha had quite a reputation on both sides of what used to be the
Iron Curtain. Of course, Gordon knew that Ross had a reputation as well.
Gordon knew a little Russian, and he'd overheard some of them talking
about Ross the other night. They all knew the story about Ross's burned
hand—how he got it, and why.

There were not many who had survived direct encounters with Baldies.

Ross was one—and Misha was another. In fact, if reports were accurate,
Misha had apparently delighted in acting as a decoy in order to draw the
Baldies off. What had happened to the Baldies he'd fooled wasn't clear, but
Kelgarries, in a private conversation just before the team's departure, had
wondered if the violence of the Baldies' attacks on the Russians had
something to do with the kinds of games the humans might have been

playing with the inimical XTees.

Apparently Misha had insisted on being included on this mission. It

argued not just a dedication to tough causes. Agents on both sides,
supposedly, only found out about missions for which they were being
considered. Misha's knowing about this one meant either a high status,
despite his young age, or an uncanny ability to winnow out secret
information.

Was his reckless courage going to be an asset—or a liability? What were

his real motivations for wanting to be sent on this mission?

And what caused the almost palpable tension between Misha and Ross?

Misha's sudden laugh punctuated the silence. Gordon lifted his head,

listening.

"… not since I was small. One fall through the ice was enough," Viktor

was saying in Russian.

Misha retorted, "Floe hopping was the biggest spring sport in my

village."

"It was the only spring sport in your village," Irina said, deadpan.

Misha laughed again. "True!"

Gordon listened to Misha's melodious tenor voice, wavering about what

he ought to do. He wanted the team to be safe. Of course. But they also
had to work together, and trust one another.

He grimaced, wishing that he knew why the Russian agent had insisted

on being included in the mission. Zina Vasilyeva had been noncommittal;
it was Milliard who had said something about some sort of relationship
with one of the missing scientists. After watching Misha's flirting for an
evening, Gordon was convinced Misha had a relationship of some sort
with every single female in the Russian agency. Yet whenever Misha had
gotten too outrageous, Zina had spoken a soft word, and the blond agent
had raised his hands in truce, and subsided.

Gordon glanced over at the gray-haired woman, who was busy with a

laptop computer. What kind of internal politics had the Russians been

working through?

The engine sputtered suddenly as a buffet of wind hit them hard. The

juddering vibration increased suddenly, causing Saba to glance up and
Eveleen to look worried. Only the Russians seemed unconcerned.

Gordon sat back, letting out his breath slowly. He was glad when the

plane banked again, and started dropping down. Through the window
they could see the White Sea, just barely, a ghost outline through thick
white clouds. The world this far north was shades of gray and silver and
white— definitely the land of winter.

The plane landed without a problem, and silent Russian workers

appeared from a rickety shed and began unloading baggage into trucks.
Apparently the scientific equipment had been sent on ahead by train, a
precaution against being bumped and banged around in the air.

Someone handed around thermoses of hot, sweet coffee and spicy soup

as they piled out of the plane and into the waiting trucks.

Soon they were zooming down a freshly plowed road into what seemed

the middle of nowhere. Again, no one spoke much; the truck was
unheated. Gordon hunkered in his corner, listening to the growl of the
engine and the clash of gears, wondering when he would see the States
again. If.

Not if, he thought, angry with himself for permitting even one defeatist

thought. And since his own thoughts were lousy company, he turned his
attention to the others.

A couple of the Russians murmured softly, their breath clouding in the

frigid air. Gordon glanced over—and saw that they were playing cards on a
upturned gasoline drum.

He watched idly, listening to the chatter. The Russians were talking

about family members, it seemed; after a while he realized they were
indulging in the same kind of "what if" he wouldn't permit himself.

He turned his shoulder and glanced at Ross, whose face was grim and

stony, his unwavering gaze on his wife. Eveleen had headphones on,
running to a portable CD player in her coat pocket. Gordon wondered if it
was Yilayil language practice—or something altogether different.

Saba, as well, was listening to earphones. Gordon had no question

about what Saba might be doing. Of course she was working ahead on
Yilayil nuances. But that was part of her job.

Across from her, Case Renry sat with a laptop on his skinny knees,

equally absorbed in his work.

Gordon's attention came back when the truck gave a roar and slowed.

Soon they piled out—to see, sitting out on a barren tarmac launch pad,

a globe ship exactly like the one that had inadvertently taken him, Ross,
Renfry, and Travis Fox to the other world.

Travis. There was another subject to brood about. Gordon hated to

think about Travis lost forever—and he regarded it as his fault, no matter
what his superiors said to the contrary. How many would go missing this
time—under his command?

As he thought it, he realized that that was his real fear.

Not what would happen to him. But the fear that once again he'd lose

an agent.

He shook his head; no use brooding. What he had to do was make

damn sure that this time, everyone came back. Or he wouldn't.

Making this internal vow, he clambered out after the others.

"Whew," Ross was saying as he tipped his head back and grimaced at

the globe ship. "Never thought I'd see one of these things again. Which
was all right with me!"

Eveleen walked right up to the ship, and squinted at the dull,

pearlescent hull. "Some kind of alloy?"

"Looks like a type of ceramic," Saba said, coming up on the other side.

"You'll have plenty of time to discuss this with Renfry and the other big

brains during the trip," Gordon said, forcing an attempt at a light tone.
"We'd better lend a hand in getting the gear stowed."

They all joined the line of Russians who were helping the truck driver to

load equipment into the ship. Gordon saw Renfry and one of the Russians

following a couple of crates with anxious looks—obviously delicate
machinery of some type or other.

"At least the Russians seem to have made the inside a little more like

home," Ross commented, peering up at the round opening as he muscled
his load up the ramp.

"Could hardly be less," Gordon cracked, doing his best to lighten his

own mood as he followed Ross inside.

Eveleen snorted a laugh.

"We bunk up here," Zina called down from the level above. "Choose

where you wish to sleep. We did not assign."

This globe ship was slightly larger than the one he'd made the trip in

before, Gordon noted. The Russians had fitted the big, circular space with
movable panels, creating little double cabins that afforded a semblance of
privacy.

Gordon hesitated, watching Ross and Eveleen go into one of the small

cabins. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Saba hesitate, then she walked
with dignity into the next cabin over. Gordon was free to join her—or not.

He looked around, saw that the other cabins were all claimed, and

winced. A moment later Ross appeared as if propelled, followed by
Eveleen, who whispered, "… make it any more difficult than it already is."

Out loud she said in a cheery voice, "How about if we females bunk

together, and you fellows do the same? I know you and Gordon are used to
each other's habits from old missions."

Ross rather sheepishly beckoned to Gordon, and Eveleen swung her

bags into the cabin Saba had chosen.

Gordon did not hear the conversation between the two women, though

he could hear the murmur of their voices.

Ross didn't say anything. He just stowed his stuff in a locker beneath

the bunk he'd chosen, leaving the other one to Gordon.

Gordon got his stuff stashed neatly inside of a minute, and went out to

see where he could lend a hand. He was not surprised to see that Renfry
and the weedy Russian tech-whiz, Valentin, had chosen to bunk together.
The Russian women had also paired off, the older two together, and the
younger, and Misha and the dark-eyed silent Viktor had also chosen a
cabin together, leaving the dour Gregori to bunk with the pilot, a quiet
man in his forties who was introduced as Boris Snegiryov.

"We do not wait," Boris said almost immediately. "We lift soon. Get

into your bunks. Strap in."

Gordon remembered that last trip. "I take it you haven't modified that

plus-gees acceleration?"

"Two point sixty-seven gees," Boris corrected. "It is the same. We

cannot interfere with the engines—we still do not completely understand
them. We can only work around their given function."

"I don't need a second warning," Ross commented, waving a careless

hand. "I'm for my bunk."

As soon as the equipment was stored to the techs' satisfaction, everyone

retreated to their bunks, strapping themselves securely in.

Gordon listened to the sudden quiet. Neither he nor Ross spoke.

"We are lifting off," Boris reported over the intercom.

The first warning was the vibration. Gordon remembered that; his

heartbeat accelerated.

The vibration increased steadily, until it became a low, subsonic moan

that resonated through bones and teeth. Gordon shut his eyes—there was
nothing to look at anyway—and waited.

The sound changed abruptly, and the cosmic hand swatted them,

pressing him into his bunk.

His consciousness receded to a dim awareness of a virulently glowing

red eye; suddenly it was the pit of a volcano he was falling into. He
struggled against the nightmare, his body spasmed, and the pit dwindled
and resolved into the red-lit numerals on a clock mounted near the door of
the cabin.

But his inner ear thought he was still falling, so insistently that he

barely noticed the aching of his body in every joint and socket. But he
forced himself to unstrap and sit up—and immediately he floated free.

Grabbing the webbing of his bunk, he propelled himself toward the

door. His stomach fought, but he recognized the zero gravity-induced
nausea for what it was, and looked around, forcing his eyes to impose up
and down on his surroundings.

It worked. After a few white-knuckled moments his innards settled, and

he hit the door tab. "Ross?" He turned his head.

"Give me a minute." The agent gripped his bunk, his scarred hand

showing white.

Gordon turned away and watched the door slide silently into the wall.

Somewhere he heard someone being sick; another person moaned, the

baffling of the portable walls only muffling the sound.

A Russian voice called out, "Take your anti-nausea meds!"

A deep voice responded unhappily, "I cannot open my eyes."

Misha's laughter rang out. It sounded heartless. But then came his

voice: "Here, Valentin. I'll find it for you—get on your bunk."

There was no sound from any of the women's cabins. Gordon hesitated,

then tapped lightly at Saba and Eveleen's— grabbing hastily at a handhold
to prevent himself from ricocheting back.

"Yes?" that was Eveleen.

"Gordon here. You all right?"

"We're fine."

Gordon handed himself up the ladder into the circular command

center, where one of those cardboard-thin view-screens they'd nicknamed
plates on their last journey now showed the blackness of space.

Boris was busy at a console that had been wired to the mysterious

guidance console installed by the unknown makers of the ship.

A moment later Gordon was aware of a flicker at his side. He looked up,

into Zina Vasilyeva's face. Her chin jutted slightly, but otherwise she
seemed composed and calm.

"We are safely launched," she said. "Are your people all right?"

"Adjusting to free fall," Gordon said.

"Shall we turn our attention to making a schedule for our people?"

"Let's," Gordon said.

The mission had begun.

CHAPTER 9

EVELEEN LAUNCHED HERSELF onto the next level, then looked

around in delight.

Vera smiled, looking like a kind of cheery cherub with her red curls

floating around her face. The other women who had longer hair had
braided it and wore it pinned up to keep it from floating in their faces.

"You like?" Vera asked.

"It's great," Eveleen exclaimed. "When we were on the ground, all this

space seemed wasted—I forgot about null-grav."

Saba said, "Whoever made these ships must have spent a lot of time in

space."

Irina, from behind, said soberly, "That is why we called them

scoutcraft. We think they were sent out to investigate other worlds. They
might have gone long times between actual landings."

Irina, Eveleen knew, was by profession a data analyst— apparently

formidably good. Her finely chiseled face was also impossible to read,
Eveleen had decided after covertly watching them all. Not so Vera, whose
every mood was clear in her expression. Vera was gifted at
communication; her missions had involved, apparently, getting people to
talk. Eveleen hoped her talents would extend to alien races.

Eveleen turned her attention from the Russian women to the rest of the

globe ship. The inner skin of the globe's rec room was lined with recording
instruments for the journey, as there was no real cargo space, but it also
boasted entertainment—including a pair of VCRs (with a stash of tapes in
in English and Russian) and a stereo system with half a dozen headsets so
several people could listen to music at once.

In their cabins they also had headsets, but those were wired to the

master computer on which the Yilayil language, and other pertinent data,
were stored.

Near the Terran entertainment mods were the strange compartments

and storage racks of the aliens who had built the ship. Among them were
the rectangular boxes that were activated on being handled—and showed
pictures of whatever the user wished to see.

Eveleen ran her hands over it, wondering what the hands of the original

users had been like. Were they brown, or blue, or rainbow—were they
five-fingered, or nine-fingered? What kind of places had been depicted,
and what kinds of emotions had been inspired?

She thought about the sonic shower that Vera had nicknamed the

Bubble Room. They only had one, but it was enough; she'd stepped out
feeling not just clean, but with a sense of well-being that indicated the
unknown owners of the globe ship were not so very alien from humans.

"There are two mysteries we have to solve," she said out loud, without

thinking.

Saba nodded. "The Russian team—and these people." She nodded at

the storage compartments.

They already knew the story of this particular globe ship; like the one

Ross and Gordon had found fifteen thousand years ago, the Russians had
also found theirs back in the past, the crew dead. Only unlike the
American ship, whose owners had been newly killed, the Russian ship's
crew had died some time before, of mysterious causes. Had another ship
attacked them? Their skeletons had been intact, which argued against
local predators. Was disease to blame?

That was still being investigated by teams of XT forensic specialists at

home, working under as much secrecy as the time agents.

Meanwhile, the new team had to live together on this ship, and then

they had to make it successfully back again after living in the midst of a
third alien race.

Eveleen gently put the rectangle back in its place and turned away.

Irina was gone; the other two were examining things.

Glancing at one of the clocks the Russians had wired in each cabin, she

said, "Our rec time is about over. Shall we get busy?"

Saba nodded soberly, and Vera gave her a quick salute.

They found Irina in the small cabin that had been designated the study

area. Zina and Gordon had declared that once people walked into the
study cabin, no more English or Russian could be spoken—only Yilayil.

"Here in place of knowledge I—conveyance-motivator— work,"

Eveleen trilled.

Strange. She was actually getting comfortable with the word order

when she used Yilayil—but if she tried thinking in English and translating
it over, she got mentally tangled.

Saba added something about repetition, to which the others agreed,

then they sat down to the tapes.

A WEEK OF ship's days later found her again in the study cabin,

working with the other women. Each had found a favorite place to rest,
and a mutually agreed-on method of study: they listened to a segment of
tape, then went round in the circle repeating the new phrases. Then they
asked one another questions that required answers based on the new
material. At the end of the practice session, Saba would explain what
they'd be hearing next, so they could either listen in their cabins, or review
the old, however they learned best. As they advanced, Eveleen had begun
to struggle with the odd tenses and sensory contradictions layered into the
more formal challenge language.

"What is a green taste?" Vera asked suddenly. "Are we understanding

this correctly?"

"It is correct," Irina said, checking her laptop. "But I do not

comprehend it."

They all turned to Saba, who said slowly, "It is possible it means some

kind of complicated insult, but that's only a guess. Let's proceed; maybe
these contradictions will begin to make more sense."

Eveleen nodded, and reached to flick the tape back on.

Now, as Eveleen worked, her eyes observed the others, and her mind

considered her own life. It was the human way, she had decided, to make
crazy circumstances into a seemingly normal pattern. One created habits,
and habits became customs, if enough people practiced them. When there
was a semblance of order, one could function. In a totally chaotic or alien
environment, the effect on one's mental health was profound enough to
affect the physical self.

During the long days of space travel, the time-travel and scientific

teams had all worked assiduously at their language studies, so much so
that now and then even during rec time, whistle drones would punctuate
chatter, particularly between those whose Russian or English was
especially spotty.

The scientific team was also learning it—as Eveleen discovered on a rec

shift when Valentin moved too quickly and inadvertently squeezed his
bulb of coffee. Eveleen had watched in horrified fascination as the liquid
spread into a cloud of droplets.

It was Vera who thought fast, grabbing the weird little device that

they'd nicknamed the handvac, and chased after the droplets sucking
them up.

As she worked, Renfry trilled, "Make it didn't happen!"

Everyone laughed—or almost everyone. Eveleen saw Saba frown slightly,

then purse her lips and repeat the trill to herself.

What was she noticing? Eveleen mentally reviewed the trill. It was

deceptively simple. In English it made no sense, but in Yilayil it sounded
natural. Could it, she suddenly wondered, perhaps have some religious
significance?

She brought it up with the study group later—and as usual, no one was

certain. Irina said warningly, "Perhaps this House of Knowledge is a
religious cult."

"You think this a bad thing?" Eveleen asked.

Irina's dark eyes flicked to her face for a moment, then down to the

laptop that Irina never seemed to be without. "Perhaps," she said. "It
depends on what they might worship—and why."

Eveleen thought about this for a time, then decided not to add to her

worries—they'd find out when they found out. Meanwhile, there was plenty
that she could learn.

The ship "day" had been divided into two watches of twelve hours each.

The science team had taken the "night" watch, and the time-travel team
the "day"—enabling everyone to have a full stint of time at the tapes and
people with whom to practice.

Eveleen and Irina had concocted a set of exercises to keep everyone

physically fit despite their weightlessness, most of them on a peculiar
Russian universal exerciser.

The best time, though, was the overlap when the "night" team and the

"day" team shared awake time. They watched movies together, or played
cards together (the older Russians in particular seemed especially fond of
complicated card games), or—Eveleen's favorite—made music. Not just
listened, but made. Viktor played the violin, and Elizaveta could perform
on a flute, clarinet, and recorder. Misha played a guitar, and he had a
mellow singing voice. Just watching him leaning against a wall, singing
ancient folk songs in shivery minor keys, was a distinct pleasure. He
looked like something out of one of the romantic Russian films.

Misha. Eveleen grinned privately to herself. The guy seemed

constitutionally unable to resist flirting—and not just with Vera and Irina,
but with all the women. Saba held him at arm's distance. Nothing
provoked her out of her calm dignity. Eveleen herself pretended not to
understand some of his ambiguous remarks. So far, Ross hadn't seen any
of it—which was just as well. Despite their agreement of before, Eveleen
knew that Ross was not one for hiding his emotions, and the ship was
simply too small for feuds.

And it had to be admitted he flirted with her rarely. Most of his

attention was equally divided between Vera and Irina, the former of whom
showed a very strong interest right back, and the latter of whom
responded with a kind of intense coldness that Eveleen could not quite
fathom. Misha, of course, seemed to pester Irina the most, to Vera's
unhidden (but unexpressed) annoyance. Eveleen felt uneasy about this
triangle—and hoped the rivalry wasn't going to translate into trouble later.

Zina turned to her, whistling something—and Eveleen realized she had

let her attention wander too long. She dismissed her speculations and
turned her mind to the work at hand.

FROM THE CIRCULAR accessway, Ross watched the women in the

study cabin. They rested on several surfaces, but all their heads pointed in
one direction, indicating a mutually agreed-on "up" and "down." What
was funny was, the men's customary "up" and "down" was totally
different.

How strange it was that the women seemed to have gravitated into one

group, and the men into another. No one had set a rule about this—it just
happened.

He glanced back at the cabin he shared with Gordon, and sighed. And

he had been worried about married life on a mission! Except for that piece
of legalese called a marriage license back home, he didn't feel married, not
anymore. Most of his time was spent with the men, except for those rec
periods at the end of the shift, when everyone got together to watch a
movie or listen to music. He could sit next to Eveleen and steal a few
minutes for talk, but that was about it for Quality Time.

"Countdown for the first landing just began." Gordon appeared,

handing himself down the corridor. "Want to grab some grub now?"

"Sure thing." Ross followed him to the galley. Remembering the weird

food he and his three fellow adventurers had been forced to eat on their
inadvertent jouney last time, Ross grimaced.

Those areas of the galley were closed and sealed off. The Russians had

installed a freezer and microwave unit, with a refrigerator housing drink
bulbs.

His hand hovered over the panel of choices. Back in the States, he and

the others had filled out a form for the Russians, indicating food
preferences and aversions. The result was a selection of choices that took
into consideration the highest number of "I like this" marks and the least
"Won't eat it on a bet" indicators.

He liked the food—but eating in zero gravity was a hassle. He had

realized, while laboring through his first meal, that the aliens had been
smart, with their solids and pastes. Rice, mashed potatoes, sauces, were a
messy chore. Chunky soup was a dream—and Ross wasn't sure he could
swallow it even if they'd put it in bulbs. Food felt different going down,
when it had mass but no weight. His first meal or two had made him gag,
and he'd noted a similar reaction in some of the others.

He'd stuck to the pureed vegetables in juice form, and other liquids,

until he trusted his stomach. Now he was used to it, and chose a
pita-bread sandwich as well as his usual coffee and vegetable juice.
Gordon had the same.

Ross slid his choice into the microwave, then broke the seal on his

drink bulb. He took a long sip. The coffee, which was contained in a
special unit, was fresh and scalding hot.

"Did I understand Boris right?" he asked. "I know we're going to hit the

refueling planet pretty soon."

Gordon nodded.

"But what about that other world in Yilayil's system, the one with the

furred critters. Did he say we're going to bypass them?"

"He did indeed. The Russians were able to program that particular

landing out of the tape, which incidentally saves on fuel."

"Good."

"Our experiences there were apparently enough to convince them

against any investigation of that planet. That will lie on some future
team's plate—luckily our mission is definitely on the Yilayil planet."

The microwave light went off, and Ross reached in to get his meal. He

shoved himself over to one of the rests, and hooked a leg around a curved

handhold in order to anchor himself. He breathed deeply of the ship
air—faintly metallic still, reminding him of the taste of the alien water
from his previous journey—and then bit into his sandwich. He liked the
spices the Russians favored.

"Good cooks."

Gordon grunted, swallowed, then whistle/droned a comment about

food. While Ross was cudgeling his brain to make an answer, a perfectly
pitched response came from behind them, and both Ross and Gordon
turned to see Misha lounging in the hatchway, his blond hair drifting.

With a lazy smile, the Russian time agent moved with expert grace to

the food dispenser, chose a meal with a light stab of his finger, and then
chucked it into the microwave— all without causing his body to recoil.
Ross kept his face impassive, wondering how many had witnessed his own
first day or so, when he'd forgotten that any use of force will have an equal
reaction, which meant he was left windmilling in the middle of a room
until he drifted near enough to a wall to reorient himself. Had Misha seen?
Probably.

His food was heated. Misha snagged it, grabbed a bulb of coffee, then

pushed himself over to join the two Americans. Gordon made space for
him.

Misha waved his bulb at Ross. "Your wife. She is very beautiful."

Ross nodded, instantly wary.

"But so prudish." Misha's brows quirked, and his mouth smiled, but his

intelligent gray eyes were direct in their assessment.

Like the first time he'd seen Misha, Ross's instant reaction was a

lightning stab of anger. He hid it, though, guessing immediately that he
was being goaded. This guy couldn't possibly have the hots for
Eveleen—not when he had an equally attractive woman like Vera sitting
up and smiling every time he entered a cabin. And he hadn't exactly been
ignoring Irina, Ross had noticed.

He's still testing me, Ross thought. And if I take a swing at him, he's

just going to see it as weakness, and make a game of needling me.

So he forced himself to shrug, and grin. "I can only speak for myself.

And no, I don't think I'm a prude, but I don't find you the least bit
attractive."

Misha's laughter rang out—he was clearly surprised, and delighted, at

the crack.

Gordon's lips twitched; Ross feigned unconcern, and took a bite from

his sandwich.

"She likes to fight, your wife?" Misha continued.

"She's good at it," Ross said. Ordinarily he'd say Ask her but he wasn't

going to offer this guy what might be interpreted as tacit permission to
harass Eveleen.

"Ah, I like to fight. I shall offer her a fall, when we have gravity again."

Ross shrugged. "Be my guest." He knew Eveleen's practice mat

persona—all professional. If this clown was looking for a chance to flirt,
he'd find a robot more responsive if he planned to try it during
martial-arts practice.

The thought made him grin. Misha gave him a speculative look, then

turned his attention to Gordon, and he fired several rapid, acute questions
about the library they'd found on their last journey, and whether or not
the Weaslies had exhibited any signs of even rudimentary language.

By the time Gordon was done talking, Misha had finished his food, and

he launched himself out again; they heard his voice floating back from the
command cabin.

"Testing you." Gordon pointed with his chin in Misha's direction.

"I'm not an idiot."

"No, but you're the same land—adrenaline seeker," Gordon retorted.

"Me?" Ross frowned, thinking back. Slowly, almost unconsciously, he

flexed his burned hand, then he said, "Maybe. Once. But no more."

"No?" Gordon grinned. "No one, from Milliard on down, would have

faulted you for not taking this assignment. Hell, the rules forbid newly

married agents from being sent into the field."

Ross snorted a laugh. "Well, maybe a little. Eveleen as well. But not like

that guy. What's pushing him?"

"I don't know," Gordon said slowly. "All I know is, he pulled every string

to get assigned to this mission. Even to the extent of causing a shootout
with gangsters in order to save this ship from discovery."

"You think it's just adrenaline, then? Or there's some other motivator?"

Ross asked.

Gordon shook his head. "As yet, I have no clue. The guy willingly talks

to everyone, and will even talk about himself, but only what he's done,
never what he thinks. And we have to remember what all of them have
lived through, finding out about comrades being killed in those Baldy
attacks."

"I just hope he's not going to make trouble just to get things stirred

up," Ross muttered.

"Zina thinks he's too smart for that. Nevertheless, I'm glad he'll be

mostly away from us on his search job."

"Yeah." Ross crushed his empty bulb in his hand.

CHAPTER 10

GORDON ASHE OBEDIENTLY swallowed his anti-nausea meds, and

settled gratefully into the webbing of one of the extra seats in the
command cabin. Next to him, Zina Vasilyeva waited silently, her gaze on
the viewscreen. They'd just endured the hideous wrenching of the transfer
from other-dimensional space; centered on the viewscreen was a small,
blue-green crescent. A larger black disk with a corona flaring around it
marked the planet's primary. The crescent swelled rapidly as the ship
followed its programmed course toward the huge, ancient spaceport at
which the globe ships refueled.

Gordon's unvoiced worry was that some other ship would show up, and

they'd have to deal with the beings—somehow— though the Terrans knew
little about how to control the communications of the globe ship.

He did voice one worry—that the reprogramming might somehow

interfere with the communications. "When so much of the ship function is
automatic," he said. "I wonder if tampering with it might cause some kind
of signal to go out?"

"We debated this," Zina replied without taking her gaze from the

screen. "There is no way to know if we have sent a signal. We decided to
take the chance. The question of fuel, and of defense against the inimical
beings on that one planet, made us feel the benefits outweighed the risk."

Gordon glanced at the communication board—still a total mystery. Was

a signal going out—or not? There was no clue in the complicated series of
lights and buttons.

At least no other ships were in sight, he noted, as the globe sped toward

the mysterious refuel planet. Now gees pulled at them, and the ship
reacted to floating trash: even after the lapse of millennia, the nameless
planet was surrounded by a haze of detritus left behind by visiting
star-ships.

The blue-green crescent resolved into a lush planet swirled with cloud

systems. Gordon felt his body pressing into his webbing with more
authority. Suddenly his viewpoint changed, though the position of the ship
vis-a-vis the planet didn't: his inner ear registered down, and vertigo
seized him.

At the controls Boris now held his hands ready above his console,

watching lights flickering and measurements of various types streaming
across his computer terminal as the autopilot brought the ship down
toward the apparently endless stretch of white cement that marked the
ancient starport.

Gordon swallowed fast, closed his eyes, and tried breathing slowly. They

were in flight now, subject to the planet's 0.92 standard gee, which settled
his stomach rapidly. The transition from orbit was not as bad as the
emergence from the weird hyper-dimensional travel that none of the
Terran techs—either Western or Eastern—could duplicate.

Silence gripped the ship, except for the creaks and subsonic groans of

entry into a gravity well. All the crew members were in their bunks, on
Zina's orders—all except Boris, the pilot, and Zina and Gordon as senior
officers.

Gordon and Zina stayed with Boris as a kind of insurance—what kind,

Gordon didn't know. He certainly couldn't operate the ship if something
went wrong. It would have made more sense to have Renfry on hand—of
course, Renfry and Valentin probably had wired up a viewscreen to their
terminals, and were following the action from their cabin.

It's probably a political gesture, Gordon thought. Showing us that

everything's on the up-and-up, without having to say it. Establishing trust,
which we've got to have if this mission is to succeed.

Gordon opened his eyes again.

They were almost down. There was the peculiar blue-green sky again;

memory smote him with unexpected force. No moisture was evident in
that sky. If the planet had weather, it was all elsewhere. Of course, that
would make sense—to locate a spaceport in a desert.

With a gentle bump, the ship settled onto the wide sweep of white

cement. There was the rusty red ruin. There were the ghost ships,
untouched since their last visit.

The globe ship's position with respect to the nearest ghost ship even

looked the same—Gordon wondered if the globes were programmed to set
down on the very same landing pad.

They'd have to, he realized belatedly. Or would the refueling bots come

out no matter what land of ship set down— and would they know what
kind of fuel to administer?

Fueling bots!

He turned his head; his neck cricked at the unexpected weight. "When

we were here, the fuel bot was broken—"

"We saw that, on your mission tape," Zina replied. Her voice was

hoarse. "Our first mission was prepared for this problem, and were able to
effect repairs on the robot."

Of course. He'd forgotten that first Russian mission—the reason they

were here!

Gordon was embarrassed at his own stupidity, but only for a moment.

From the way Zina rubbed at her temples, she was having difficulty
adjusting to gravity again as well. Thinking was at least as difficult as
moving.

"Here he comes," Boris said, for the first time during the entire journey

showing some emotion. "Good work, Vasili!"

Gordon watched the viewscreen. The snakelike fuel robot slithered out

to the ship and disappeared from view. But a moment later Boris gave a
grunt of satisfaction, and indicated one of his measures. "Fuel."

"What type of fuel does this ship run on? Your people figure that out?"

Gordon asked.

Boris shook his head. "Our analysis is much the same as yours—a type

of slurry encapsulating some of the superheavy elements, triggered by a
catalytic environment that we do not yet have the technology to fully
understand."

Gordon nodded. All the more reason to take extreme care when using

the globe ships. The autopilot tapes might be safe enough—but the only
fuel, as yet, was from this ancient starport, and who knew when it would
run out?

Boris gave another grunt, and touched a pair of controls. On the

viewscreen, the robot hose began its steady retreat.

The globe lifted again, accelerating rapidly. The journey out was far

faster, and Gordon realized that some of the inbound maneuvering might
be programmed in accordance with planetary defense strictures.
Speculation about the gauntlet of ancient weapons they might have faced
occupied him until he felt his weight disappear. Soon after came the
wrenching transition to hyperspace.

When that was over, he lay in his webbing until he felt recovered.

According to that first journey, they now had exactly a week of travel
before they planeted on the Yilayil world.

Everyone was progressing well with the language, thanks to assiduous

use of the hypno-tapes and keeping to the rules about only using the
language in work sessions. They were about as well prepared as they could
be, given the incomplete and somewhat bizarre data in the language

tapes, and their scanty knowledge of a very complicated culture.

What remained was the Terrans themselves.

Gordon had made a point of trying to get to know each of the crew.

Easiest were the younger Russians; at least, easy to talk to, he amended,
thinking them over. Misha talked at least as much as Vera, but not about
anything personal. He kept his inner self well hidden behind an
impervious shield of friendly, joking insouciance.

Hardest were the older Russians. Gordon's instincts told him not to

press. He didn't think that Gregori or Elizaveta necessarily hated the
Americans and didn't want to work with them, but their younger years
had been spent in a rough political climate, wherein one did not reveal
oneself easily. That they did talk to him—on such bland, unexceptionable
topics as linguistic studies, science, and so forth—meant to him that they
were trying their best.

The last one was the toughest—Saba.

Thinking of those intelligent dark eyes, and the smooth, softly accented

voice, Gordon decided he'd lain inactive long enough.

Time to get started.

He unfastened his webbing, nodded to Boris, and pushed himself out.

Glancing at the time as he sailed through the rounded corridor, he gave
the schedule a quick mental review, and headed for the rec room.

The noise of a video made him stop and peek in. Three of the Russians

and Renfry were watching some documentary in Russian. He knew that
several of the others were in the study right then, which meant that Saba
was probably in her cabin.

He stopped himself outside her door, grabbed a handhold, and tapped.

The door slid open—Eveleen was gone; Saba was alone. Gordon saw her

laptop terminal lit, the machine anchored down to the little desk.
Earphones floated in the air next to the terminal.

"Gordon?" she said politely. "May I talk to you?" he asked. She nodded

once. "Of course."

"Sorry to interrupt," he said, entering the cabin, which was small and

very tidy.

"It is all right," Saba said with a graceful gesture. She swiftly saved her

work, then closed the laptop and laid her folded hands on it. "Now. What
did you wish to discuss?"

The cabins were too small for visitor space. Gordon had hitched himself

over Eveleen's bunk.

"I've been thinking ahead," Gordon began. "We have no idea why that

statue of you exists, but we can assume that our mission has something to
do with it. It was probably carved as a result of our visit.

Saba nodded; they all knew that.

"Your assignment is to enter the House of Knowledge, about which we

only know one thing: that only selected beings are permitted entry, and
everyone else stays out."

Again common knowledge. Yet she exhibited no impatience--she knew,

then, that he was establishing the background to his thoughts.

"I might not be able to get in, even as your """." He whistle/droned the

word for runner/caregiver.

"I have thought of that," she admitted. "But we do not have any

evidence that the inhabitants of the House of Knowledge are prisoners, or
how could the First Team have learned even what they did? I must assume
that I can come out to visit you if need be.

"No evidence except those anomalies in the language," he insisted. "You

yourself noted that the odd tenses seem to deny free will at times, that
they might indicate a cultural means of coercion. So I don't think we can
count on that. What I'd like to do is establish a code, in both
languages—English and Yilayil—that ideally we can use on our radio
connection. One code for pulses—for emergencies—and another for spoken
communication."

"So you are assuming that we are going to be in a hostile environment,

then," she said.

He shook his head. "Given how many pieces are missing from the

puzzle, I think it's best. I talked it over with Zina before we strapped down
for the refuel, and she says she's had thoughts along the same line."

Saba sighed a little, flexing her hands. Gordon realized she was tense,

though she gave no overt signs.

"Look," he said, "I hate to pile on the pressure."

She shook her head, smiling a little. "It is already there."

Gordon smiled back. This was her first admission of real human

emotion. And he knew that the same thing could be said of him—that he
hid his real reactions. But it would be a mistake to assume that he didn't
have any, just as he couldn't assume that she did not feel normal human
emotion.

"Well, we can't get around the fact that you are going to be important

in some way—if not for us, for them. Let's just hope that this means they
think you're great, and give you a cushy position somewhere, doing
something poetic in one of their rituals. Meantime…"

Saba nodded again. "Your code is an excellent idea. Have you designed

something?"

"I thought that we could do that together," he suggested. "We got a

little time before our shift turns in for sleep—how about getting a start on
it now?"

Her smile widened, just a bit. "I think that's a very good plan," she said.

THE HOUR AFTER Gordon came into her cabin to speak passed

quickly for Saba. Once they'd begun to work, the man's remote
countenance relaxed, his slow, careful speech— as if he were reluctant to
speak at all—became normal. He was still too controlled for Saba to hear
his natural rhythm. Controlled, cautious, but not inflexible. She could be
patient.

All people made music of some kind, Saba had discovered when she

was a girl beginning her studies in English and French. In Ethiopia, music
was very much a part of life for the peoples she had known, traveling

about with her father, who was a doctor—the Dorze, her mother's people,
and all the other peoples of Ethiopia, from Eritrea to the elusive Danakil,
made music all the time, in every aspect of life.

But in listening to the language instructors at her school, she had

discovered that there was music in speech. Each language had a different
music, and each individual interpreted that music differently.

She'd lost that conviction for a time, when she moved to Addis Ababa

to attend university. But after a time life in the large, sophisticated city
had brought her old convictions back, once she'd gotten used to the noise
of technology. There was a kind of music even in modern life. Some people
made very little music, but what they had was dark, angry, ugly—jangling
with disharmony. Some made the muscle-tightening music of fear. Others
made quiet music, repeating patterns they had learned from generations
of equally quiet people.

Some—very complex persons—kept their music to themselves until they

trusted. At first she'd wondered if Gordon Ashe had any music, but she'd
come to realize he was one of these latter. He had a fast mind, and an
attention to detail that she appreciated.

In that hour of study that he had come so suddenly to request, they laid

the groundwork for a series of signals, ranked according to need, that they
could build on.

When the bell toned for the shift change, Gordon seemed as surprised

as she was how quickly the time had vanished. He said a polite good
night—once again careful and remote— and left.

Saba stayed in the open door, her mind ranging over the past hour. As

yet Eveleen had not shown up. Saba wondered if she and Ross had
managed to find a little time alone, and hoped it was so. Eveleen never
complained, but there was a wistful expression in her eyes when she
referred to her husband, so newly wed. Her voice, so pleasant, with sunny
music very close to the surface, would convey shades of longing.

A flash of long yellow hair caught Saba by surprise, and she looked up

to see Mikhail Petrovich Nikulin hanging upside down, just a meter from
her face.

With a quick gesture, he oriented himself so that they were aligned in

the same direction, then he gave her one of his grins.

"Nice night for pairs," he said, pointing back over his shoulder in the

direction Gordon had gone. His own music was exotic, quick with control
and unexpected percussive accents. This Mikhail—called Misha by his
Russian colleagues— was another complex person.

"Perhaps," she said, feeling a spurt of amusement at his assumption

that she and Gordon were romantically involved.

"So do you like old men only, or have you a smile for me?"

"Old? Men?" Saba asked.

"Gordon Ashe might be tough as nails, but I'm younger and much more

handsome," came the immediate retort.

"Thank you for the information, Mikhail," Saba murmured.

"Misha! I want two things, and I shall have them: you will call me

Misha, and you will smile at me."

"I will give you both, willingly, if I can then retire for rest," she said.

"Good night, Misha." And she gave him a very polite smile.

"A challenge!" He laughed. "That's a challenge, Saba."

She closed the cabin door, and heard his laughter echo as he moved

away.

Eveleen appeared a moment later. "That guy!" she exclaimed. "Does he

ever give up?"

"You too?" Saba asked.

"Ohhh, yes. I noticed him talking to you during rec time, what was it,

day before yesterday? It's so easy to lose track— one day so much like
another." Eveleen grinned as she wrestled out of her clothes and into her
sleepwear. "You know," she added, her head muffled in her top, "I could
get used to this nullgrav—all except getting dressed. I feel like an octopus,
writhing around in midair!"

Saba chuckled. "You are right. It is difficult."

"So, back to Misha." Eveleen's head popped out, and she fixed her

floating hair into its night braid. "He's, what, pressuring you for a date?
Or does he just want you to admire his oh-so-fascinating handsome blond
self."

"He wants to make me smile," Saba said.

"Well, that sounds harmless enough."

"I have said it wrong," Saba corrected, and she lowered her voice,

trying for his characteristic tone of voice—partly humor, partly challenge.
"He wants to make me smile." She gave the verb a slight emphasis.

Eveleen's brows winged up, and she whistled one of the Yilayil challenge

responses. "So. What do you do?"

"Continue to ignore him, and hope that Vera or perhaps even Irina will

eventually occupy his attention."

Eveleen hooked herself into her webbing, and fastened it over herself.

"Never a dull moment, that's the name for this mission, right?"

"Right," Saba said, giving in to laughter at last. Then she too composed

herself for sleep, and doused the light.

AND SO THE last days of zero grav passed. Saba felt the pressure of the

imminent landing—they all did. No need to check the schedule anymore.
Everyone was putting in as much preparation time as they could, the
science team readying their equipment.

Saba continued to meet with Gordon each day, and they rapidly set up

a communication code that both could remember with very little
prompting. They'd covered as many contingencies as they could invent,
leaving room for possible combinations as the mission progressed.

Misha, of course, continued his campaign, but even he seemed rather

absentminded—as if he continued out of habit, or to hide how he, too, had
emotions about what was soon to take place. She found those emotions
difficult to interpret— but she was certain that they were there.

Finally Boris sent the signal for the emergence from the

transdimension, and they all retreated to strap into their bunks.

Saba knew that landing on the Yilayil planet was now a short time

away. She took her anti-nausea medication. Very shortly thereafter the
wrenching weirdness seized her in its grip, making her body feel as if it
had been turned inside out and then right again.

When at last it was over, and she had recovered, she opened her eyes to

see Eveleen groggily sitting up from her webbing, which was swaying
gently from her movements.

She unstrapped and hooked a foot around a hold, working through a

series of movements that Saba had learned were very good for restoring
circulation and muscle tone.

In silence Saba joined her.

When the two women were done, they left the cabin, and found the

others gathered round the command center.

There, on the viewscreen, was the system they were headed toward. A

blue-white crescent loomed on one side, slipped away.

"Passing second planet now," Boris reported.

"Good riddance," Ross Murdock cracked.

"Amen to that," Case Renfry said softly.

Not long after, they saw Yilayil—a big blue-green crescent, not unlike

Earth at this distance—rapidly growing dead center on the screen.

It swelled, until they could make out the islands thickly straddling the

equator, and the white, sere land masses at the poles, all hazed by the
atmosphere and obscure under swirling weather systems.

"Back to the bunks," Zina commanded. "We are shortly to planet—our

work is to begin."

No one had anything to say to that—even Misha seemed subdued.

In silence the two women retreated to their cabin, and prepared for

landing.

CHAPTER 11

ROSS FELT GRAVITY close its fist on his vitals, and he concentrated

on his breathing. The ship was now under flight; the globe creaked and
vibrated as it arrowed down toward Yilayil.

Ross tried to picture the planet, a series of island clusters belting the

brilliant blue ocean that girdled the entire world. The spaceport was not
located on the largest island—just the flattest. Most of the rest had active
volcanoes on them: not good choices for any kind of city. Ross wondered if
they'd be there long enough for the science team to actually explore some
of those islands; there had to be tens of thousands of them, if not more.

He hoped not.

It seemed the landing was faster this time than the last, but maybe that

was because he knew what to expect. At any rate, they finally set down
with a gentle bump, and Ross bounced and swayed in his bunk webbing,
stretching his limbs experimentally.

Sounds came from the other cabins. The others emerged, one by one.

Some of them had wasted no time in getting their equipment ready for
deployment. Gordon was already out of his bunk, overseeing things; Ross
listened to the quick American voices as he and Renfry spoke.

"Damn," Renfry was saying. "This stuff is heavy. I sure wish we knew we

could safely run power off the ship."

Ross thought about the mysterious fuel, and wondered how they'd

power the globe if they suddenly ran empty. They couldn't do it—of course.
The idea of floating through space forever, maybe caught in the weird
transdimensional plane, gave him the willies.

It was enough to get him to unstrap and swing out of the bunk. He

slipped his shoes on and left the cabin.

"Ah. Ross." Renfry hailed him with obvious relief. "Gotta get this

generator stuff out first thing, and get us a power supply set up."

Ross nodded, feeling his muscles protest as he lifted a heavy box. After

the weeks of weightlessness—despite the workouts—everything seemed to

weigh about a ton.

"Misha and Viktor gone out scouting?" Ross asked.

"Soon's Boris lowered the ramp," Renfry said. "That guy Misha acts like

he's been in two gees for a month. He was out there with enough bounce
to make a Marine drill sergeant happy."

Ross snorted—and then grunted with effort as he started down the

ladder after Renfry. He was just as happy not to see Misha lounging
around and grinning at his laboring movements under all that weight.

They made it to the outer port, and Ross glanced out. Like before, the

rich, scent-laden air hit him at once, and he nearly dropped his burden as
a violent sneeze took him.

Renfry sneezed right after, and then sneezed again. He rather hastily set

his own box down and sneezed a third time, then sheepishly wiped his
nose.

Ross sniffed, trying to get his sinuses acclimated; he looked around as

he waited. They'd landed at dawn. Gaudy pink and orange and yellow light
filtered through the lush growth at the cracks in the old spaceport paving.

"Phew!" Eveleen appeared next to him, her arms piled with several flat

boxes. "Smells like an explosion in a perfume factory!"

"It is just as well we brought a large supply of anti-allergens," Valentin

said soberly, appearing behind Eveleen.

"We didn't get sick on our run," Renfry said, "but maybe that was luck.

I'm just glad we're immune—at least we can hope we're immune," he
amended, squinting around at the unfamiliar varieties of trees and
bushes.

"Let's get unloaded, then we can explore a little." That was Zina, behind

them on the ramp.

Ross realized he had stopped at the base of the ramp, and was holding

up the line. He quickly bent and picked up his box, and the line proceeded
with the unloading.

They kept moving until the base camp items were all stacked up and

waiting against Misha and Viktor finding a good location. Then they
retreated back to the ship, with Gregori and Vera standing guard against
the little blue flyers showing up and pilfering souvenirs.

Ross was glad to get back to the sterile ship's air. His sinuses cleared

almost immediately—making his nose run. He noticed the others having
the same problem.

Gordon was ahead of him in line for the midday meal. "Remember

getting the sniffles last time?" Ross asked.

Gordon gave a one-shoulder shrug. "Nope. Maybe it's old age setting

in."

Ross laughed, but he wondered if their anti-allergen medication was

maybe a tad too vigorous. Last flight—when they'd had, perforce, no
protection beyond the alien suits—had produced no such problems.

They each got some food, and Ross hunkered down with his back to a

wall, glad to get his weight off his feet.

Zina waited until everyone had food, then she nodded to Gordon, who

said, "Listen up, people. We've got to start wearing our communications
gear right now. If we set foot off the ship, even for ten feet, we wear it." He
gave them an ironic grin. "I don't know about the First Team's visit, but
when Ross and Renfry and I were here last, it was me who found himself
making an unexpected trip to the local flyers. No problem—that time—but
we need to be prepared until we know if there have been any changes."

Ross nodded, and the others made various signs of agreement. It was

clear that Gordon and Zina had been talking about general strategy.

Ross was nearly done with his meal when Viktor and Misha appeared

in the doorway. "We found a good one," Misha began.

Zina addressed him in rapid-fire Russian, and Misha's mouth

tightened. He nodded his head, and spread his hands.

Ross looked at Misha's belt, which was bare, and knew that the

maverick agent had left his own com gear behind. Why? Showing off, Ross
thought sourly.

Ross also noticed that though the silent Viktor came in for a share of

the lecture, it was Misha who caught the full load. Of course it had been
his idea to skip off the ship the second the ramp was down, and go out
ranging around before the com gear had even been broken out.

Misha kept his head bowed, his lips curved in the merest ghost of a

smile, and when Zina finished he said something short and mild in
Russian. Then he looked up. "We must get moving now if we wish to get a
camp set up before dark," he stated in English.

Ross shoveled his last bite of food into his mouth and stood up. At once

his shoulders and arms protested, but he ignored it. "So let's move," he
said.

Everyone helped. They formed a long pack train, leaving only Boris and

Renfry behind to guard the ship. Each person carried as much as he or she
could handle.

Misha and Viktor had done an excellent job of trailblazing, Ross noted

as he trudged along behind. Of course.

But—despite his distrust of the blond agent—he was just as glad that

Misha and Viktor were as good as reputed. He hadn't really thought about
laying camp until he stepped out and looked at this wild land once again.
But this was no easy matter. They had to position themselves not just
within range of both ship and library tower, but well away from any
known weasel or wild-humanoid dens. But that wasn't all. They also had to
be in a good position for the transfer equipment— because the time agents
would be appearing in the same spot many years earlier. So they didn't
want to be where spaceport (if it was being used at all) or city action
might be congested, for example.

He knew that Viktor, in particular, had spent a great deal of time with

the meticulous recordings of measurement and location reported on the
incomplete tape made by the First Team. It was he who had mapped out
the probable location of buildings and pathways they might find in the
earlier time, and he had to overlay it with the present.

The camp turned out to be in a protected grotto next to a waterfall,

with a natural spy-spot on the hillocks above the falls.

Misha stepped into the little clearing first, waving a hand about with

the air of a prince offering his palace.

Zina looked around, nodded slowly, glanced at Elizaveta and Gordon,

who both made approving sounds.

"We shall set up camp here," Zina pronounced.

And then it was time to really get to work.

"Biomass converters here—" The most bulky machinery they'd brought,

squatty olive-green cylinders, took two people to wrestle out of the ship.

"Want the transfer equipment there, or what?"

"Water samples are ready, Zina…"

"No, the housing must be here—"

Everyone talked at once. As he worked under Valentin's direction,

stacking supplies and equipment whose purpose he could only guess at,
Ross listened to the melange of voices. It sounded like some kind of surreal
dream—the bits of English and Russian, many of them interspersed with
whistles and drones of the Yilayil language. These latter referred to local
sights and conditions—it was actually quicker now to think of the world in
native terms.

The science team would sleep aboard the ship, but they set up a

defensible hut, just in case. Once he'd finished his grunt work, Ross was
ordered by a distracted Zina to aid Misha, Viktor, Gordon, Irina, and
Gregori in camouflaging the hut.

By the time they'd finished, Ross's body felt like one big ache. His

muscles burned, and his lungs labored for breath. Gravity seemed to have
converted his body to the weight of granite.

But when he looked around wearily, expecting further orders, it was to

see Renfry and Zina—both looking pale and sweaty—standing in the
middle of the camp. Renfry finished explaining something, and Zina gave
a nod of satisfaction.

"Good," she said. "It is done."

Ross followed her gaze. Now the clearing looked much like it did before.

Nothing was immediately obvious unless you stepped close. And the sonic
barriers that the science team would set up would discourage roaming
predators.

"Were we spotted?" Ross asked.

Vera, atop the hill with her field glasses, nodded. "Six or seven of the

little blue flyers."

"Can't be helped," Renfry said, working his neck from side to side.

"We'll be contacting the flying people anyway—and they seem to be the
only ones the blues communicate with."

Ross dropped onto the ground, wiping his brow. The humid air made

him feel hotter and sweatier than a heat wave in the Midwest.

The Midwest. He closed his eyes, all of a sudden feeling a familiar

sickening knot in the pit of his stomach. He realized, just as he had on the
last journey, how very far they were from home.

A movement beside him caused him to look up, and Eveleen smiled at

him as she wiped back a strand of damp hair from her clear brow.
"Homesick?" she asked softly.

"Mind reader." He tried a laugh. It was almost convincing.

"Ah, we'll be in action soon, and no time for homesickness," she said

with a chuckle.

"At least these guys are all excited." He nodded at Renfy and Valentin.

The entire science team seemed to have been infused with some kind of
mysterious energy. While all the time agents sat around, either waving
broad leaves like fans or just sitting still, the scientists were busy wiring
their equipment together, and getting their various systems online, while
chattering at high speed.

"Excited—and worried," Eveleen murmured softly.

"Worried?" Ross frowned. "What's this? Something new come up?"

"Nothing new," Eveleen said. "Something I guess the big brains all

thought of, but no one has said out loud. You know, those feral human

creatures…"

Ross remembered the desperate fight during his first visit here. He

frowned as an idea occurred. "I didn't think of that. You mean, they're
afraid that those things might be descendants of the Russian First Team,
somehow mutated?"

Eveleen's eyes were sad. "Exactly."

Ross shuddered. "Hell. Hadn't thought of that, but even if it's been

centuries—hell." It seemed inadequate, but at the same time appropriate.
No one wanted to think their descendants—or their friends'
descendants—would be savage monsters. "Let's hope not."

Elizaveta worked at the generator, making sure the bio-mass converters

were functioning smoothly. Ross sniffed; a faint whiff of alcohol seemed to
tickle his nose, but maybe that was his imagination. He knew in general
how the converters worked—converting organic matter into alcohol, which
then burned pure, to power the generator.

As he watched, Elizaveta adjusted something, and that faint whiff was

gone, buried in the astonishing variety of scents carried on the heavy air.

"Well, we'll start finding out tomorrow," Eveleen whispered, staring

through the open door of the hut, where Gregori worked with steady care
on the time-transfer apparatus.

"Maybe we'd better head back and start preparing," Ross said.

He looked up. It seemed the others had had the same idea.

In silence they returned to the ship, a good meal, and a night's sleep.

EARLY THE NEXT morning, when it was Ross's turn to step into the

strange sonic shower, he shut his eyes and let the frothy bubbles work
deeply into his skin. Who knew how long it would be until he stood here
again? At the back of his mind a voice whispered, "If you come back—"
but that only succeeded in making him angry, and he closed off the shower
controls and got into his transfer clothing.

Eveleen was waiting in the galley, along with the rest of the team. He

went to her side. Next to her was his pack of equipment.

The others chattered quietly; when Zina appeared in the hatchway and

looked around, they all fell silent.

"The time-transfer apparatus is set up, and runs successfully, Gregori

reports," she said. "I suggest we waste no further time."

The others responded with gestures or murmurs of agreement.

Zina added, "I wish that I could be with you on this mission. But my

place is here, in the present. And I know that Professor Ashe will carry out
command as I would have done." She nodded at Gordon.

The sudden formality underscored the tension in them all—all except,

perhaps, Misha. He only grinned. Ross wondered if that mention of
command was a reminder to the Russian time agents, Misha especially.

Misha's grin widened slightly, but all he said was, "Let us go. We want

to be there at dawn, do we not?"

As they stepped down the ramp into the soft predawn air, Renfry and

Boris appeared behind them. "Good luck," Renfry called in a low voice.
"See you soon."

Boris added something in Russian, and Vera turned and gave him a

cheery wave. Both Boris and Renry stood on the ramp; their job right now
was to guard the ship.

There was little talk as the rest of the team marched through the dark

forest to the campsite. The faint light of dawn painted the wild growth
around them with splendorous color; the sun was just rising.

When they reached the campsite, Elizaveta, Gregori, and Valentin were

waiting.

Zina turned to face the time agents. "I have said what is needful." Her

eyes were steady in the pale light. "We will await your signal. Good
hunting."

The rest of the science team stepped forward to say quick, subdued

good-byes, and then Gordon and Saba walked into the hut.

Moments later the ground seemed to shake slightly: an illusion, Ross

knew, a response of the mind to the distorted probability waves sweeping
out from the apparatus as it catapulted the two agents into the distant
past. Other than the slightly acrid scent of ozone, there was no other
indication of the time machine's operation.

Misha and Viktor went next.

Then it was his and Eveleen's turn.

She said nothing, only picked up her pack. Ross did as well. They

stepped inside the hut. There were the bars, the familiar but weird opaque
material for them to step on. He looked down at his feet, thinking about
the many jaunts to the past he'd made. Last time, on Dominium, he and
Eveleen had come back as heroes. He hoped this time would be as
successful but less traumatic.

The platform suddenly seemed to drop out from under him as a million

voices shouted inside his head. White light filled him, squeezing out his
identity for a moment that seemed endless…

Then reality collapsed back around him, a cocoon of certainty, and he

opened his eyes. Next to him, Eveleen's breathing was harsh but
controlled. She looked at him, her own eyes dark, her lips pressed
together.

"We're here," he murmured, and leaned down to kiss her.

For a moment their lips met. Hers were dry, but warm and sweet.

"One more. For the road."

"For the century," she retorted, and gave him a smacking kiss. Then she

said, "They're waiting for us." And she opened the swinging metal door of
the shed.

They stepped out.

The grotto was surprisingly like the one in the present, but the smells

were different. Ross sniffed, finding the air cleaner somehow. He kept
sniffing as they rounded a huge shrub, to find Misha and Viktor gazing
silently upward, one face puzzled, the other grim.

The Russians turned to face the new arrivals.

"The First Team had reported no flyers," Misha said without preamble,

his gray eyes sardonic.

Why state the obvious? Eveleen looked aside, rolling her eyes. They'd

known that since the first briefing.

"Right." Ross decided to humor him. "So your job is to search for them

as well as for remains. So?"

"So look, American." He raised his hand skyward.

They were looking east at the rising sun. Against the reddish ball, a

flight of huge winged shapes flapped with grace— humanoid shapes.

Flyers.

CHAPTER 12

ROSS SAID, "WHERE'S Gordon? Saba?"

Misha pointed up the hill, which was considerably higher than the one

up the timeline. Eveleen couldn't see either time agent, but then she knew
she wouldn't. They'd be scanning the area under as much cover as
possible.

She turned her eyes eastward, and watched the flyers disappear on the

horizon. No one spoke. No one moved until the soundless shock repeated,
and Vera and Irina stepped out of the shed containing the time machine.
Eveleen's mind shied away reflexively from the knowledge of how fragile
their link to their own time was: the shed and the machinery it contained
were but projections of the apparatus in their own time.

Gordon and Saba appeared a moment later, walking quickly down the

steep hillock.

"The perimeter of the port seems to be roughly the same as up the

timeline," Gordon said quickly. "And completely quiet. Nothing in sight
except robotic maintenance devices of various sorts, either shutdown or
quiescent. As for this area, our guess was right. It's a kind of park. There's
nothing but vegetation in view. But I can see buildings over that way." He

pointed to the southeast.

"No spaceships at the port?" Ross asked.

"Not that I can see," Gordon replied, hefting his field scanners. He

turned to Viktor. "And the landing area is full of cracks and
brush—indicating nothing has either come down or taken off for many
years. So let's get the second phase of this mission complete."

Viktor gave a quick nod. "We are ready. We return as quick as

possible."

He and Misha vanished into the undergrowth.

Eveleen exchanged a glance with Ross. He looked grim, and she didn't

blame him. Misha and Viktor's first order had been to check the burial
site of the Russian biologist to make sure the bones were still there. They
would not disturb the body in any way, merely make certain it was just as
it would be found up the timeline in the present—to double-check that
time had not been altered at this end of the timeline.

Already they had one anomaly: the flying creatures.

As if his mind had been following the same track, Gordon said, "There

might be landing sites elsewhere, on another island. We're hampered by
our use of the globe ships and the autopilot wire in that we can't go on a
scouting trip around the planet."

"That would explain the flying people," Saba murmured. "We know

we'll be finding other species who have already assimilated. It could be
that the flyers landed and figured out how to assimilate some time during
the century since the First Team appeared here."

Eveleen nodded her agreement. "In a hundred years, it's certainly not

unreasonable."

Vera frowned. "This could include other humanoids."

Eveleen thought immediately of the feral human creatures in the

present timeline—their tentacled bodies and utter lack of any form of
civilization. If the Russians had disappeared, how could those feral
humans be their descendants?

It would mean that either other human-type beings had appeared—or

that she and her team would be trapped in this time and place, and those
were their descendants. Not the Russians, but hers. Ross's. Gordon's and
Misha's and Vera's and the others'.

She turned to Ross, biting her lip. If… if it were true, could she bear to

have children?

Don't think about it now, she told herself. Keep your mind on the

mission.

"Viktor will be fast," Irina said softly. "He and Mikhail Petrovich have

been to the burial site twice since we landed, in the present timeline. They
will know where to go."

Mikhail Petrovich. Irina never called Misha by his nickname.

Eveleen pursed her lips. When did the men sleep? She had to admit

that Misha, despite his attitudes, was a dedicated agent.

Either dedicated, she temporized—or driven.

"Let's grab some eats, shall we?" Ross suggested. "The tough stuff will

be starting soon enough—why start it on an empty stomach?"

Vera grinned, and she and Irina cautiously began exploring in the

immediate vicintity. Eveleen watched them go. Their job would be food
traders, and as such they had mastered all the details about food
experiments recorded by the First Team.

Just as the air was breathable, so was most of the food edible. Within a

short time the two women returned laden with fruits and some large nutty
gourds that turned out to be delicious. Irina had done a scan on a stream
just meters away, and the water had nothing dangerous in it, so they each
took a turn drinking after the meal.

They'd just finished when Viktor and Misha returned, appearing

silently, without disturbing any of the undergrowth. Eveleen privately
awarded them points for superior woodcraft.

"He's there," Misha said, his mouth tight at the corners. "We found the

body, buried at the Field-of-Vagabonds. It's been left just as the First

Team described."

"Then we will assume the timeline is intact," Gordon replied. "All right,

ground rules again. Emergency pulses only, at least until we've had a
chance to settle in and know that we're not being overheard. Relay
everything through me."

He paused, his blue eyes narrowed. Everyone assented.

Gordon lifted a hand. "Then let's go."

Viktor took over, leading them down a pathway. They all knew, in

general, the layout of the Yilayil city as described by the First Team.
Viktor had memorized every bit of data available—and he would be
mapping the areas that the First Team had not reported on, as he and
Misha made their methodical search for forensic evidence of the other
First Team members.

"The only thing that gives me hope," Ross murmured to Eveleen as they

marched single file through the thick jungle undergrowth, "is that the
abrupt disappearance of the First Team might just mean that we did
rescue them."

Eveleen said, "Except why don't we find anything left by our future

selves, to tell us how to do it? I know I'd do that for myself, if I could.
There are no signs of any of us—that we've found."

"Not up the timeline, but there might be here. Right?" Ross asked.

"But if there is, we'd have to have left it from the past, not

here—because we just got here. And the apparatus doesn't permit
microjumps, so we can assume we don't slap back to this day and hide out
to leave us little notes to wherever we're going now."

"Unh," Ross grunted, shaking his head. "This time stuff really makes

my brain ache."

On the other side of Ross, Saba was smiling. "It's almost easier to

discuss in Yilayil. I need to untangle those odd tense constructions."

"Doesn't matter," Ashe said tersely. "From now on, if you speak, speak

Yilayil," he ordered. And he added a quick comment in that language that

Eveleen translated to herself; leaving out the identifiers and the false
origin they'd developed from the First Team's personae, it meant: We are
on their ground, we do as they do.

No further reminder of the fate of the Russian biologist needed to be

made.

Eveleen toiled along, her knapsack on her back. The humid air made

her feel damp and hot before long, and the scents of the millions of herbs
and blossoms around them were overpowering. She knew they'd eventually
be coming to a cleared area; maybe her sinuses would unclog.

As she walked, she heard Saba half suppress a sneeze, followed almost

immediately by Irina. Viktor and Gordon began breathing through their
mouths. But no one spoke again as they kept walking.

Once they stopped. Viktor lifted a hand, then dashed down the trail

aways, followed by Misha. Eveleen watched them move silently and swiftly.
She thought she heard a low thrumming, but it was soon gone, and she
wondered if it was just the pounding of her own heartbeat in her skull.

Then Misha and Viktor reappeared, and waved them on.

They had to emerge from the jungle within the borders for the foreign

enclaves, or Nurayil. Yilayil meant "People of the People"; this
designation was only for the nocturnal weasel folk. All other races were
Nurayil—"People of the Stars."

They descended a hill, and Eveleen glimpsed buildings through the

thinning trees.

At once they halted, and Misha and Viktor withdrew into the trees.

Ashe nodded at Eveleen, Ross, and Saba, and the four started down the
trail, Eveleen walking with Ross, and the other two just behind.

Eveleen felt her palms sweating. She knew her story, she felt

comfortable in the simple forms of the question-rituals, but still, her
adrenaline was spiking.

A series of round, low buildings were the first things they saw. Each

had a round opening, into which beings of several kinds moved in and out.
Eveleen felt slightly reassured when she saw those who met one another on

the trail make the expected ritual gestures before one or the other stepped
aside. The heavy air did not carry the sounds of the ritual responses, at
least not at first. As they neared the first building, she could hear the
tweets, whistles, and drones of many beings communicating.

It was all much quicker and noisier than she had ever imagined. She

saw Ross staring around, his forehead tense. Ashe focused directly ahead
of him; Saba, however, gazed around, her eyes narrowed.

Almost at once they encountered three short, heavy-looking bipeds with

tough, bumpy hides. Their whistles were so high and quick Eveleen almost
couldn't follow, but she recognized familiar notes among them.

Saba whistled in return, and stepped aside. The other three followed.

The beings continued on their way without another glance.

Beside Eveleen, Ross let out a long, slow sigh.

It worked! It worked! Etiquette declared that the stranger defer to all;

when one met acquaintances, the one who performed a service the more
recently took precedence.

If they just deferred to everyone, at least now, they'd manage.

Four buildings in, they found the Transport Center, and Ashe gave

Eveleen and Ross a quick nod.

"Here we go," Ross murmured under his breath.

Eveleen watched Ashe and Saba move on. They were going to try to get

to the House of Knowledge, and at least see it, even if they couldn't get
Saba in as a worker right away. Some time spent in its proximity ought to
provide a sense of what was going on there.

In the meantime, Ross and Eveleen had to establish themselves as

transportation workers. In private they'd called themselves cabbies, as
they memorized the data provided by the First Team on the rail-skimmers
the Yilayil and Nurayil used for transport.

The big building was full of beings, the warm, heavy air shrill with

whistling, the droning sounding like an orchestra of out-of-tune bagpipes.
Ross and Eveleen made their way to one side, where functionaries sat at a

complicated console. Eveleen felt Ross walking tensely at her side, as he
scanned the crowds for the familiar shapes of Baldies. Eveleen did not see
anyone that remotely matched that description. She did see at the console
two of the tall, spidery beings that the First Team had identified as being
involved in all aspects of Nurayil tech.

They made their way up the line, and found themselves abruptly

addressed not by the spidery beings, but by a tall, imposing creature with
six arms. Related to the weasel folk?

Eveleen desperately banished speculation as the being addressed them:

"I, Fargag of Nurayil Transport, this morning see strangers here?"

Eveleen wet her lips, and responded with slow care, "I, Eveleen of Fire

Mountain Enclave, come to learn ti[trill]kee and to work as I learn."

Fargag fired at them a question of challenge: "Fire Mountain

Enclave—unknown to me!"

"I, Ross of Fire Mountain, say that our Enclave is known to us," Ross

whistled. "Known many generations to us, but we now travel to learn
ti[trill]kee."

Fargag whistled a liquid phrase that made Eveleen's knees tremble with

relief. It was a kind of cautious acceptance of temporary status. Beings
who were anxious to learn "proper deportment" ti[trill]kee were
provisionally accepted. At least, so it seemed, Eveleen thought. She could
never forget that the First Team had been provisionally accepted—but
they had disappeared.

Fargag instructed them to pass on to Virigu, one of the spidery beings.

They deferred as Fargag passed to the next newcomers, and Eveleen

heard his challenging whistle/drone as they waited to address Virigu.

Within a short time they were tested in maintenance of the transport

vehicles. They both had studied until they knew the mechanics of the
rail-skimmers in their sleep; in fact, Eveleen reflected, as she swiftly
disassembled, cleaned, then assembled a series of parts, that she had done
this several times during her strange jumble of dreams aboard the globe
ship.

They were accepted as maintenance workers—which meant pressing

their palm on a square silver measure—and when questioned about their
domicile, their second delicate moment came. They admitted that no one
from Fire Mountain Enclave was currently in residence among the
Nurayil, but they wished to establish a domicile, and once again they were
accepted at face value. Virigu put them to work at once, for the turnover
was apparently high at this job.

The day's work lasted until the light outside began to fade. At that time,

all Nurayil but those formally accepted for service to the Yilayil were
expected to withdraw to their domiciles.

Ross and Eveleen followed a number of other beings who didn't have

family or clan domiciles. The housing for all the unconnected beings was
inconveniently located at the far edge of the Nurayil enclave, but Eveleen
and Ross were grateful that it was still there at all. They found that things
had changed little in the hundred years since the First Team discovered
the place—small round chambers, like cells in a beehive, lined a large
round building that Ross and Ashe had found empty and hollow in the
present timeline.

No one organized it; Eveleen and Ross poked their heads in at the doors

of any unmarked or open rooms as they wound their way slowly up a
ramp, until at last they found one—an inner cell, with no window—that
had apparently been recently vacated.

No belongings were in it, and the little identity console on the opposite

wall from the access gleamed purple, indicating that no one currently
claimed the place.

In haste Ross slapped his palm on the metal plate below the light, and

Eveleen followed suit, for they could hear feet shuffling out in the corridor,
and it was possible that some tired, grumpy being might want to try to
claim their place if they weren't formally "in." No one protected Nurayil,
unless their families or clans did. This meant that those without either
were at the bottom of all hierarchies, and must look out for themselves.

The light gleamed yellow—it was theirs.

Ross hit the door control, and the door slid shut. They were alone.

Eveleen looked around. The cell was just that, smaller even than the

cabins aboard the globe ship. A storage compartment opened next to the
door, and she shoved her knapsack into it. There were no furnishings;
they'd have to scout those out. At least the flooring had some give, and
Eveleen felt tired enough to sleep on brick. But she made herself look in
the little alcove in one corner of the room. There was a waste recycle unit,
and next to it an adjustable frame that vibrated slightly; it was cleaning
the air that moved through it. Remembering the instructions from the
First Team, she activated it, took off her clothes, then stepped through. It
felt a little like pushing one's way through some kind of invisible
gelatinous mass, but when she stepped out the other side, all the grit and
dead skin was gone from her body. It wasn't refreshing like a good hot
shower, or even like the sonic bath on the globe ship, but she did feel
clean.

She passed her clothes through the field, and watched the grime in

them patter down to the gutter at the bottom of the frame, and slurp away
to the recycler.

Dressed again, and feeling slightly better, she went out to find Ross

digging in his pack.

"Let's get the sticker on the door," Ross said.

"Oh. Right. Here, I'll do it." Eveleen held out her hand.

Ross handed her a plastic-backed sticker that they'd brought from

Earth. The cells of the domicile were all marked in some way by their
owners, for there was no other way to tell them apart, unless you
counted—and they were at sixty or seventy cells up the ramp.

Irina and Vera and the others also had stickers; this was the only way

they'd be able to find one another at night, at least until they had
assimilated and could trust using the radios freely.

Eveleen opened the door, affixed the sticker to the outside of it, and

closed it again. When she turned around, Ross had gone into the fresher
alcove. She squatted down to dig in his pack for food, but before her hand
closed on a container a soft tapping came at the door: three short, three
long.

She bounced up and hit the control. Vera stood out in the hall, looking

tired and sweaty but triumphant.

"Come in," Eveleen said. "Have you found a room yet?"

"Irina is there. She will be here in a moment." The redhead sat down

cross-legged, and pulled a substantial packet from her knapsack. "So! We
are successful—we are now food gatherers. Here is a meal!" She
unwrapped her packet with a triumphant air. "Is good, all of it," she
added.

"Shall we divide it into six portions?"

Vera shook her head. "We ate. Save out four only."

Eveleen said, "Have you seen Gordon and Saba?"

Vera shook her head just as another tapping came at the door, the

same code.

Ross opened it, and Irina walked in, graceful and quiet as always. She

frowned slightly. "No Gordon? Saba?" she asked directly. "It is very dark
without."

Ross looked grim, and Eveleen felt her adrenaline spiking once again.

No one was supposed to be out at night but the Yilayil and those who had
gained their sanction. It had been dangerous a hundred years before, and
there was no evidence that it was any safer now.

"Maybe we'd better wait on the food," Ross said, unclipping his radio

transmitter from his belt. "I'll zap them once, and see if we get an answer."
He looked around.

Eveleen and the two Russians all nodded agreement.

Part of Zina's orders had been to keep actual communications to a

minimum, until they knew that it was safe. Various sonic codes were to be
used, and those sparingly.

Ross tapped out the "Check in!" code, then sat down— and a tapping

came at the door, the usual pattern, but somehow more urgent.

Ross moved fast, opening the door.

Gordon stood there alone, his face tired and grim.

"Saba?" Eveleen asked. "Don't tell me they already took her in?"

Gordon did not speak until the door was shut behind him. "As soon as

we crossed into the zone of the House of Knowledge, I knew something was
wrong. Everyone we met ignored me, nor did they challenge Saba. They
didn't even address her."

"What?" Irina asked. "No questions? No demands for proper Nurayil

deference?"

"What happened?" Eveleen began.

Gordon turned to her. "As soon as we got there, she was taken right in,

and I was left outside staring at faces carved on giant poles—twenty feet
high at least. A different face on each, from various races."

He paused.

"Is this bad?" Vera prompted.

"I don't know," Gordon replied. "I can only tell you this: the one at the

very front was absolutely, obviously Saba."

CHAPTER 13

ROSS HAD SEEN that expression on Gordon's face before— when

Travis Fox was finally listed officially as "missing in action," and given up
by the officials at the Project.

"You tried her on the transmitter?" Ross asked, indicating his belt com.

"I pulsed her," Gordon said. "She did pulse me back. But when I tried

voice, all I got was noise. There must be some kind of sophisticated digital
jammer operating, forbidding communication above a certain level of
complexity."

Ross said nothing for a moment, considering the level of technology

needed to jam a spread-spectrum com system, something impossible to
Terran science.

"A statue of Saba… in this time," Eveleen said slowly.

Ross turned to his wife, who paced back and forth along the wall of the

tiny room. She looked up. "It must mean that we're going to be making
another jump, only farther back."

"To when First Team disappears," Vera said, nodding. "We were all

hoping we'd be going back to rescue them, weren't we?"

"If it is safe to do so," Irina said in her precise voice. "We do not go

back until we are assured that it will not destroy the timeline."

"Well, I hope to," Eveleen said, then grimaced. "That is, to make it

plain, I hope that it transpires that we've already been back there and
rescued them and that's why they disappeared. Does that make sense?"
She made a face, rubbing her forehead. "Sheesh! I do hate thinking in
possible timelines, it scrambles my brain!"

Ross nodded, appreciating his wife's attempt to lighten the tension, but

Gordon's expression did not change.

"We're not going backward or forward in time without Saba," Gordon

said. "I won't leave her in there."

"You can't get in?" Ross asked.

"Tried." Gordon shook his head. "Tried offers, questions, and even a

challenge—and it almost got me lynched. So I beat a retreat, figuring if I
pushed it any harder, it might only jeopardize Saba. Came back here,
found a room at the top of this Nurayil dorm. It's a long walk up the ramp,
but from its window I can see the House of Knowledge."

"Now that was a good idea," Ross said, his mind rapidly

developing—and then discarding—possible plans. They simply didn't know
enough. But one thing was for certain: being able to watch the House of
Knowledge had to be an advantage. "Didn't you and Saba work out some
codes on the com, for just in case?"

"We did," Gordon said. "Mostly voice codes, but some pulse ones as

well."

Irina sat silently, frowning, her mouth in a straight line. Next to her,

Vera smiled and shook her curly head. "It might not be so bad come
morning. We know she's alive, at least."

Gordon nodded slowly. "We'll give it a few days. Say, a week, unless

there's an emergency. Settle in, gather data. Then meet—all of us,
including Misha and Viktor, if we can get them—to review our strategy."

"Sounds like a plan," Ross said. "Come on, let's chow down. No one can

rest, or think, with an empty gut. And I don't know about you, but we put
in a day of hard work."

He pushed a portion of the food toward Gordon, and was relieved when

the professor took it and began methodically to eat.

Eveleen gave them a cheery smile. "Hard labor indeed. You can tell

those rail-skimmers are old. Unless today was a real gift from Murphy,
they must break down all the time."

Gordon swung his head toward the Russian women. "And you?"

"We are now gatherers," Irina said. "It appears that eating

establishments will hire on their preferred gatherers, and one can then get
prepared food as well as work credit."

Vera said, "We'll find out which places make the sorts of things we can

eat, and zero in on them. No one has noticed our field analyzers, and we're
going to be careful to do it when no one else is around. In the meantime,
we walk about with our gatherers' tools and listen. A few challenges, but
no one took any interest in beings from Fire Mountain Enclave."

"None in us either," Eveleen said.

"Good." Gordon finished his share and got to his feet. "Let's meet

tomorrow night and compare notes."

Everyone agreed, and very soon Gordon and the Russians departed,

leaving Ross and Eveleen together in the tiny cell.

They looked at each other.

"Alone at last," she said with a tired grin as she held her arms out. "It's

not the Yilayil honeymoon suite—"

"Privacy," Ross murmured into her soft hair, "ranks it up there over

any luxury penthouse on Earth."

"Privacy," Eveleen said, laughing.

COLD SHOCK NUMBED Saba as she thought of those tall, carved wood

statues before the House of Knowledge—and her face on the foremost one.

"This means I've been here."

It was the only possible explanation. She sat in the room that the

guardians of the House of Knowledge had brought her to, trying to clear
her mind and plan. Except her mind refused to work. So she looked
around. The walls were plain, except for paintings that looked very old;
she sat on a low couch made of some woven material that felt like flax.

How long had she been here? She glanced at her chrono. An hour and a

half.

She sat back, closing her eyes—but then the door opened, one of the

green beings, who seemed to be the guardians of the House, entered and
beckoned to her.

She said nothing as she rose and walked out of the room.

Fast Yilayil voices exchanged ritual greetings around her— vying,

apparently, for the honor of escorting her inside. She knew she ought to be
listening, and she caught a few words. Someone trilled something about
making a place in readiness, but she lost track of the rest of the statement.
Her mind could not veer from that image of her own face, in a time when
she supposedly had never been.

When? What had happened?

Someone addressed her: "Saba-music-maker of Far Star is welcome at

last to the Yil."

To "the people." Not to any specific ones—Nurayil or Yilayil. They

definitely knew who she was. That meant she had already accomplished
something.

The first realization banished that earlier image of women from some

distant planet that happened to resemble her. The second realization
made her heart pound.

If I have been here, she thought, then I know I will have left myself some

kind of message. I know it as well as I know myself. Somehow, I must find
it, so that I can accomplish what must be done, and protect the integrity
of time.

So deciding, she felt inner conviction at last, and with it the ability to

think—to assess.

She turned her attention to her surroundings.

Cool, dry air was her first awareness. The second was the glare-free

light, from some hidden source. The walls were plain, as had been that
parlor to which she'd initially been brought.

Before her stood two robed beings, one tall and spidery, the other feline,

with sleek black fur everywhere except the face. The latter spoke.

"We, Rilla and Virigu, teachers of the House of Knowledge, now

welcome Saba of the Far Star. We are teachers of deportment."

Saba knew the response to that. "I, Saba of the Far Star, am ready to

learn deportment." If nothing else, this would buy her time.

"Saba now come with us." Rilla's voice was scratchy, her whistles weak,

but she was understandable.

The Virigu had not yet spoken. Saba gave the spidery being a glance,

remembering what the First Team had said about these creatures; they all
bore the name Virigu, and they were the highest-ranking Nurayil in that
they were involved with all levels of technology.

Saba was led up a curving ramp. "We are females," Rilla went on. "We

wear robes which symbolize our dedication to Knowledge."

Saba said nothing. She felt her belt communicator buzzing against her

hip, but she did not move her hands to it to acknowledge Gordon's call,
not with these two beings watching her. Though so far Rilla and Virigu
had behaved with respect, the fact that she had been taken here without
being asked indicated she might in fact be in danger.

"We protect you," Virigu trilled, an uncanny parallel to Saba's thoughts.

"We teach you."

They paused at a landing, and Saba paused as well. She glanced down,

saw a splendid mosaic far below, on the ground floor. It depicted the night
sky, and constellations not even remotely familiar.

Rilla moved again, leading the way. Saba was distracted momentarily

by the swaying of a long, luxurious black tail among the draperies of
Rilla's robe.

They paused before a door. Saba noted that it was alone on a corridor,

with a blank wall adjacent. Virigu pointed to her hand with a long,
chitinous digit. She then indicated a silver plate next to the door, and
Saba pressed her hand against it.

A series of tiny lights rippled, and the door slid open.

All three passed inside a small room furnished with a low couch. On

one wall faded paintings made a complicated scene; on the other lines
promised some kind of furnishings now folded away.

"You domicile here," Rilla said. She touched a control panel on the

blank wall, and a kind of storage enclosure slid out. Saba saw what looked
like a stepladder of boxes, each with a tiny light gleaming above a control
button at one corner. "Robes," Rilla added, pressing the control on the
topmost box. It folded silently out, showing two of the flaxen robes neatly
folded.

Saba nodded, unmoving. She was not going to change in front of these

others unless she could not avoid it. She did not want to risk exposing, and
then losing, her belt com, which she wore inside her overalls.

"We leave, you come to us for eat, we begin to learn," Rilla said, and

with a swish of robes, the two left.

Before she did anything, Saba looked around the room. Was she being

monitored? She realized that there was nothing obvious—nothing she
could identify, so she might as well dismiss that worry for now.

Instead, she explored the room, first touching the controls on each of

the storage boxes. Some of the implements she could only guess at; others
seemed to be universal—a hairbrush. A toothbrush, though shaped
differently. There was a box with a plate and Yilayil instructions. She
puzzled out the script, then took off her boot and placed her foot on it.

Lights rippled, and a moment later a slipper appeared from a slot in the
back of the box, twin in color and material to those she'd seen on Rilla's
feet.

She pressed the master control and the boxes all folded neatly away

into the wall, leaving only faint lines to indicate where they were. She
moved to a control near the corner; this one seemed to control something
that extended from floor to ceiling.

She positioned herself directly before the control, touched it, and this

time the wall slid back and a tiny alcove appeared, encompassing the
corner of the room. She saw a recycle unit, a large frame that reminded
her somewhat of the globe ship's sonic "shower," and a sink with a water
faucet.

When that slid away, she tried the last control, and found herself with a

desk and wall monitor. The keypads were utterly different than Terran
keyboards.

But it was unmistakably a computer. Was it her own? Was there

protected space on it? This would take exploring—the entire room
required careful examination. She knew that if she had any opportunity
whatsoever, she would leave herself some kind of message, no matter how
brief or crude. Something.

But that would have to wait. They apparently expected her to rejoin

them in the House.

First she took out her belt com, and tried to raise Ashe. Nothing but

static—inconvenient, but not unexpected. She tried the pulse—and a few
moments later she got a return pulse.

So. She tapped out the code for "I'm well" and "I'm investigating." A

moment later she got the expected answer: "I received your message."

Communication! For a moment she felt a strong urge to sit down and

fumble her way through the other codes they'd developed—except she still
did not know who might be listening, by whatever means. The whole idea
behind the codes was quick exchanges, fast enough not to trip some kind
of high-tech monitoring system.

Likewise she did not know how long Rilla and Virigu would wait for her

without coming back to investigate.

So she changed into the robe, used the alcove to freshen up, and passed

her clothing through the "shower" experimentally. It seemed to work on
clothes as well as on people. She checked the water with a tool that Zina
had issued to each team member; it registered as pure H

2

0. She tasted a

sip from a cup that she found waiting—handleless, but unmistakably a
drinking cup—and found that the water reminded her of pure, almost
tasteless distilled water.

Did all the beings here, then, need light, water, and…

And harmony?

It was time to find out.

She dressed again in her overalls, but put one of the robes on over

them. Her belt com went right back on her belt under the robe, but she
stowed her pack—with her laptop—in the lowest of the closet boxes, as
she'd mentally named them.

Then it was time to go to work.

CHAPTER 14

THE NEXT FEW days were so much alike that they later blurred in

memory.

Each morning Ross and Eveleen left their little cell and walked across

the Nurayil district of the port city. Sometime during that first night, a
heavy cloud bank had moved in, and a light but steady rain began to
fall—without, apparently, surcease.

Ross felt at first that this was a blessing. The rain cooled the humid air

slightly, but more importantly it drenched the overpowering scents
emanating from the vast jungle bordering the Nurayil area. His sinuses
cleared; the heavy smell of wet pavement was preferable to the millions of
sweet perfumes.

At the Transport facility, he and Eveleen worked hard, almost

continually, alongside numerous other beings descended from a variety of

races. Virigu seldom spoke to anyone, but watched continually. Some
beings did very little, and no one said anything. Ross and Eveleen kept at
their jobs— and by the second day, they saw that good workers would be
promoted to other sections.

Their goal was to pilot the rail-skimmers so that they could enable the

team to be able to move about undetected, should movement be needed. If
they could only become drivers through promotion, then they would
continue to work hard.

Most of their fellow workers kept to themselves, or stayed strictly with

those of their own land, but not all. At the one break officially designated,
at midday, there was some chatter among a few beings—while little gray
Moova circulated through with vending carts, selling an astonishing
variety of foods.

Ross noted that the Moova had palm plates on their vending machines:

there did not seem to be any kind of coinage or money in other forms. Just
the unknown credit as registered by the palm plates.

The mealtime conversation was seldom interesting, but it was good

practice in following the language—especially as used by a variety of
beings with different types of mouths and vocal structures. Some of the
whistles were thin and piercing, others curiously liquid. One set of beings
sounded like oboes; lacking a name for them, Eveleen and Ross in private
referred to them as the music people.

They both noticed that even among those beings who stayed close to

their own kind, no one spoke anything but Yilayil. Ross and Eveleen were
careful to do the same, if there was any remote chance of being overheard.
It was sometimes frustrating, but at least he was with Eveleen, whose
spirits were irrepressibly high. She attacked the work with vigor and
interest, and she seemed to regard the world without fear.

As Ross once had. He tried to regain that carefree sense of adventure,

but Eveleen's presence triggered that protective instinct. He was always on
the watch for danger—something he was careful to hide.

Each evening, Irina, Vera, and Gordon joined them in Ross and

Eveleen's room—theirs being the first one of the Terrans along that ramp.

At first, no one had much of anything to report. Gordon had exchanged

some brief communications with Saba, who— not surprisingly—seemed to
be "learning deportment" as well. He had not heard from Misha and his
partner.

The two Russian women were at least as busy as Ross and Eveleen at

their jobs. The rest of their time they spent trying to listen to the
conversations around them, without trespassing against "proper
deportment." Vera did her best to get the beings she encountered talking;
Irina listened, and took copious notes on her laptop. She did that at the
nightly sessions as well, something that bothered Ross slightly at first, but
then he decided it was her way of approaching her own part of the
mission, and so he tuned her out. Eveleen didn't seem to mind. She kept
up her martial-arts practice every night, whether the others were around
or not.

"They all talk so fast," Ross said one night. "And there's so much we

hadn't been able to learn about this language. We're still having a tough
time at Transport."

"It reminds me of English lessons," Vera said with a grin. "Four years in

school, and I thought I was so good with this tongue. But then my
schoolmates and I were taken on a trip to England, and—ha! Everyone
talked so quick, and with slang, it made my head spin! So much I found
that I didn't know."

"A good time, then, to compare notes," Gordon put in. "Here is a

challenge I heard today between the guardians of the House of Knowledge
and a pair of those gray-skinned beings who look a little like tree stumps
with extra eyes—"

"Moova," Irina said. "We found out today. The Moova all take a very

great interest in foods."

"Moova," Gordon repeated. "I'll remember. Here's the exchange."

And he whistle/droned, in quick fashion, a long pattern to which they

all listened intently.

"What's that tense?" Vera asked. " Time-as-was.

"Sounds like a mixture of time-as-was/to come."

"Conditional?" Ross asked, trying to concentrate.

"No." Gordon shook his head. "Conditional goes like this—" He

demonstrated, and Ross remembered the lesson.

"Then what is this new tense?" Irina asked. "Or is it merely some kind

of shortcut?"

"We'll have to be on the listen for more of these shortcuts," Eveleen

suggested in a grim voice as she moved through a kata. "In case they have
a third meaning that the First Team never caught onto."

"Hmmm," Gordon frowned, and Irina looked up, her eyes narrowed.

After they'd thoroughly discussed possible meanings for all the words in

the exchange, the group parted to sleep. Ross found himself reluctant to
see them go.

As soon as the door was shut, Eveleen yawned, then said, "Weird, how

isolation will make a small society into a very intense society."

"What do you mean?" Ross pulled out their single furnishing, gotten

the day before. It was a kind of futon that functioned as a couch and as a
sleeping mat. The air never seemed to get cool, so they hadn't any need of
blankets. At least the sonic shower kept the air filtered.

"Well, we all know how—if one were to try to define a social

butterfly—Gordon would be the last person ever named. Irina and Vera
are nice, but I never would have picked them as buddies. Yet I look
forward all day to seeing them, and I find every word they say interesting.
Then, when the evening ends, I'm sorry to see them go. Was it the same
when you were stuck in the past with other men, or is this a female
thing?"

"No, it was more or less the same," Ross admitted. "Travis, Gordon,

Renfry, and I talked a lot about home when we first came here. Those
cubes that showed what you valued most had to be hidden for a while,
there—it hurt too much to look at them, but we couldn't stay away."

Eveleen nodded slowly. "That was real isolation," she said with

sympathy. "You four didn't have any idea if you'd ever go home again."

"Exactly. But it was the same on Earth. I remember hunkering around

the fire with some of the other time agents, back in prehistoric times.
There was a sense of companionship, though I don't think any of us would
have named ourselves particularly social men."

"It's this weird isolation within a crowd. I felt a bit like that when I

went with my high school team to Japan to attend a special martial-arts
camp," Eveleen admitted, yawning again. "Though there, everyone I
encountered was really nice, but I couldn't speak the language, and not
everyone spoke English."

"At least you were all humans," Ross commented.

Eveleen grinned. "Yes. At least we were all humans. Here, they don't

care, which is a good thing, since too much notice might be dangerous. I
can't get it out of my head. Though we're being so careful to follow all the
rules reported by the First Team, we still don't know which rule they
broke—what caused their disappearance."

"It's been on my mind as well," Ross admitted, feeling that instinct flare

again. But he repressed it, just as he repressed the urge to sneak out of the
Nurayil dorm and nose around—see just what it was the mysterious Yilayil
didn't want the underlings seeing.

This urge hadn't been so bad the first night or so. Then, everything was

so new, and he was tired and ready for sleep as soon as the nightly talk
session was over. But now, especially when there was no land of
distraction in the little cell— no books, television, music, even—he wished
to be out exploring. If he were alone…

No. Don't even think that. Not for a moment, he told himself.

He turned to look at his wife, who was seated on the ground, working a

complicated yoga step, her face serene. She was content, and he ought to
be happy it was so.

As for exploring, that was Misha's job. And if Ross had that guy figured

right, he wouldn't appreciate anyone horning in on his turf.

"Ross?"

He looked up, saw Eveleen watching him.

"Anything wrong?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Just thinking—about the mission. You know, those

other races. That kind of thing. As for our not being noticed, I'm just as
happy to be ignored."

Eveleen smiled, shrugged, and went back to her yoga.

CHAPTER 15

THE VERY NEXT morning the Transport Maintenance Virigu assigned

Ross and Eveleen to a new area of the maintenance facility. Virigu seemed
to assume that they worked as a pair— an impression that they did
nothing to dispel.

They were greeted by a small scaled being who had hands and

tentacles, again reminding them of the modern-day savage humanoids.
Otherwise there was no resemblance; the creature had a beaklike snout,
deepset eyes, and a tail.

"I, Bock of Nurayil Transport Design, this day must accept two Nurayil

of unknown enclave and ability. Virigu of Nurayil Transport maligns the
Jecc of Harbeast Teeth Islands!"

As Bock spoke, several more Jecc gathered round, their tails twitching.

Ross looked them over, noted that they all wore identical garments rather
like overalls, but with no pockets. The arms and tentacles were free; front
flap of the garments covered the creatures' bulky midsections.

"I, Ross of Fire Mountain Enclave, this day am told by Virigu that our

job is here, and so it is," Ross hum/whistled. Annoyance sharpened his
tones, but he didn't think that so bad a thing—this groundless challenge
was too blatant.

Chirps and whistles went up from all the assembled Jecc. Two or three

of them crowded close to Ross; one nudged Eveleen, and she almost
stumbled. But she recovered her step, planted her feet, and the next push
caused the small creature to squeak and back up a step or two, to the
dismay of the others pressing in. Eveleen didn't budge.

Bock riposted with a rapid series of whistle/drones, meaning: "We'll

test your knowledge, interloper."

And Ross fired right back the equivalent of: "Be my guest."

The rest of the day, the Jecc did just that. They pestered Ross and

Eveleen constantly with questions, demanding to know if they were aware
of the functions of various rail-skimmer parts.

The department, Ross discovered, was intended to repair salvaged

parts of old rail-skimmers so that new ones could be assembled. The
department was not comprised entirely of Jecc, but they were the
majority, and they kept Ross and Eveleen away from the others.

Ross had to bite down hard on his temper at least twenty times that

day. Each time some Jecc cruised by and pinched a part he was reaching
for, or knocked into him from behind just as he was assembling a delicate
piece, he was ready to haul off and smack the little beggars across the
room.

But he looked over at Eveleen, who was getting the same treatment.

Each time she calmly picked up her pieces—taking care that they stayed
right on her, or under a knee—and continued as though nothing had
interrupted her.

Parts salvaged from rail-skimmers deemed unusable were available to

all, but for some reason the Jecc seemed to like to take parts already
selected—by someone else. Ross's temper abated just slightly when he saw
while walking across the floor to get more parts that they also did this to
each other.

One Jecc snagged a connector, stashed it underneath the front flap of

its coverall in a movement so quick it was almost a blur. Then the Jecc
scuttled away noiselessly, just as the one who'd been robbed started
groping around for the connector. That Jecc jerked its head this way and
that in weird birdlike movements, whistling a high tweeting sound that
Ross couldn't interpret.

At the day's end, Ross felt the grip of tension on his neck as he and

Eveleen walked out of the building. Hard rain drummed on the ground
and splashed in gouting falls at corners and overhangs. A rail-slammer
whirred by, and Ross looked at it with regret; they had not worked
enough, apparently, to earn credit for that kind of luxury. So far the futon,

their lunches, and their housing took up their days' accumulated credit,
according to the console on the wall of their cell.

Neither spoke until they were safely in their cell. Then Ross went to the

wall console and touched the plate. Above it, the flat screen lit with several
buttons. Below that was a number, in Yilayil script: they had apparently
moved into the black again, though just barely.

"Strange," Eveleen said, looking tiredly at the console as she swung her

arms back and forth to work out kinks from her muscles. "We never
agreed to a pay rate, or to rent for this place. How does anyone get ahead?
Is everything at Virigu's discretion, or is there some big boss over Virigu
who sets the prices on work and goods?"

"Maybe we'll find out," Ross said. "Me, I just wish we could kick back

with a pot of fresh-brewed coffee, a newspaper—in English—and maybe a
good action flick."

"While you're at it, let's have a Jacuzzi and a stereo," Eveleen added,

laughing.

Tapping at the door caused them both to fall silent. It was the familiar

pattern, and something about the quick sound made Ross think
immediately of Gordon.

A moment later he saw he was right. "Saba?" Ross asked as soon as the

door was closed.

Gordon shook his head, his blue eyes tired but alert. "Same. She's alive,

has a room of her own, and her day is filled with deportment lessons.
Nothing more yet—all we have are our codes." His hair was dotted with
droplets, indicating he'd just come from outside.

"How's the delivery boy business?" Ross asked as Gordon hunkered

down on the floor with his back to a wall.

Eveleen continued doing her kata warm-ups.

Ashe shrugged. "I'm not that high yet. Until I either come up with some

prestigious favor I can do for someone, or some seniority, I'm still hauling
trash to the recycler."

Ross jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the wall console. "Your pay

rate as lousy as ours?"

"I have the same furniture," Gordon said, indicating the futon. "I

calculate I owe another day's pay on it."

"How does anyone else without family or connections manage to eat?"

Eveleen asked, her voice only slightly husky as her arms arced and
snapped through a complicated exercise.

"Probably the same way we do: they scrounge, they get or make friends,

they go into debt to someone a little higher," Gordon said. "The current
society is not designed to easily accommodate newcomers."

"Conformity," Eveleen said, and finished up her kata with a "Whoosh!

This humidity is tough to work in."

"Probably why the Yilayil built underground," Ashe commented. "Think

of it—furred beings. Heavy fur like those creatures we saw up the timeline,
anyway, would have evolved in cold weather, one would think." He got to
his feet and moved to the console. "But you're right, Eveleen. This culture
selects for conformity, and does its best to guarantee it. Yet the technical
systems all over this city"—he tapped the little wall console with a
finger—"are predicated on the fact that each individual is unique."

Ross grunted. "Hadn't thought about that, but of course you're right."

Ashe gave a nod. "Whether by finger, tentacle, tongue, or whatever

means one wishes to be identified, apparently one of the few things these
beings have in common with us is this one fact: we are all individuals,
differing subtly from every other being, or this kind of measure would not
work."

Ross looked up at the console, and nodded. It was true. He hadn't been

asked his name, or age, or anything else; he was registered in some
unknown computer somewhere just by his palm print. And wherever he
went in the starport city, if he wished to buy something, or use a
transport, or change his residence, he would have to press his hand on a
similar silver plate.

"It's also a damn good way to keep track of people," Ross pointed out,

wondering if the system had some sinister use.

Eveleen nodded. "I was thinking about that today. Misha and Viktor

are existing outside this mysterious registry—but that's because they are
not here in the city. How long would they make it in this city without
having to sign in? Are some beings trying to exist outside the system in a
similar way?"

"And for what reason?" Gordon asked. "We can't be the only ones here

with plans of our own."

"Now that's a grim thought," Ross said, just as tapping sounded at the

door again, and he went to let in the Russian women.

"News about Saba?" Irina asked, her dark eyes narrowed, as soon as

she entered.

"No change," Ashe replied.

Irina grunted a response in Russian, which Ross had learned meant,

more or less, Is good enough for now. Then she said in English, "She is
alive. This bodes well."

"Anything new to report?" Gordon asked them.

"The pollen count is way up," Vera said. "This despite the rain."

Irina sat down, graceful and neat as always. "Nothing new for me to

report."

Ross said, "You two pick up anything about some feisty little guys

called Jecc?"

Vera and Irina exchanged grimaces.

"Uh oh," Eveleen said, grinning wryly. "Bad news on the horizon,

right?"

Vera snorted. "All we know is that they just love to surround a person

and rob you blind, unless you can get to a group bigger and tougher than
they are."

"They seem to think it a game," Irina added as she passed around some

fresh tubers and another dish that looked like chopped carrots, but tasted
more like peppered zucchini. "Luckily they tweet these weird little songs

when they run about in packs, so you can hear them coming. The first
couple times, when we didn't know what the sound was, we got pretty
much everything taken. Everything small—luckily none of our important
equipment, which we keep zipped up."

"But now we hear that noise and we run like rabbits," Vera put in. "We

asked one of the Moova about them, and found out their name—and that
everyone avoids them. They don't like anyone—yet they seem to be
pretending to learn deportment. I take it you have also encountered the
Jecc?"

"They run the department we got assigned to today," Eveleen said.

"And if we want to get us a transport vehicle, we're going to have to figure
out a way around them."

Gordon said musingly, "Pretending to learn deportment… Interesting.

Interesting," he repeated, tapping absently at the side of his dish. "You'd
think something would happen to them if they are that antisocial. That
behavior pattern doesn't fit the conformity paradigm, does it?"

"Not the way I see it," Ross said, setting aside his dish. He felt full—and

the food didn't taste bad—but the craving was so strong for a good cup of
coffee and something normal to eat. He ignored it impatiently, focusing
on the problem. "You know what this smells like? Politics. Of some sort.
And I am here to tell you I really, really hate that stink."

"Politics would be a problem," Gordon conceded. "At least insofar as we

might cross some powermonger or other all unawares." He turned to the
Russian women.

"Yes," Vera said. "I know what comes next: more listening. We are

doing what we can."

Gordon said, "I know. But the more we can find out, the quicker we can

act. I'm limited in what I have access to—but I feel I have to stay close to
the House of Knowledge, until I know for certain that Saba is not in
danger."

"Right," Eveleen said. "Well, we'll do our bit. We'll work like doggies,

and see if those Jecc will back down. We simply have to get a
rail-skimmer."

"I suppose there is no opportunity to conceal the parts, build one, and

conceal that?" Irina asked. She smiled slightly. "This is what Mikhail
Petrovich would do."

Ross hid his annoyance at the mention of the guy's name—and the

implication that he wasn't as innovative, if not as smart. "Everything is
registered, locked down, and otherwise accounted for—" he began, and
then he frowned. "No, that's not really an option. We might manage to
build one, but since they follow buried rails, it would have to be registered
with the central dispatcher, or whatever the equivalent is, to avoid
collisions. At least, that's what we were told. And what we thought. But the
Jecc and their stealing…"

"Could they be building their own transports? For whatever purpose?"

Eveleen asked, her gaze considering.

"And ought we to discuss this with Virigu and let them take their

chances?" Ross added. "I have to say, much as I hate squealing in a
general sense, after today's fun and games it would give me a hell of a lot
of satisfaction."

"It's too easy," Gordon said. "Unless your Virigu is a total fool, surely

this has been noticed before."

Ross sighed. "Yeah, as usual you're right. I guess what I need to do is

watch these Jecc and see if they actually remove the parts they steal, or if
they all get put back again. Which would be crazy."

Gordon got to his feet. "What's crazy to one might be tradition to

another. You know that. One of our first lessons as time agents. Meantime,
I'm dead tired, and want some rest before another day of trash hauling.
It'll be a week tomorrow, so I'm planning to put out the call to Misha and
Viktor." He paused at the door, and turned to Vera. "Have either of you
heard from them?"

"No," Vera said, looking down at her feet.

"No." Irina's voice was flat.

Ross wondered if it was true, then quashed the thought. Enough

problems faced them with possible conspiracies among the Nurayil; he
wasn't even going to entertain such thoughts about his fellow humans

unless forced into it.

"I'll report on their response—if any—tomorrow. Good night, all."

Gordon nodded at them, and left.

Irina said quietly, "We shall endeavor to discover more about these

Jecc, if we can."

"And anything else," Vera added, getting up slowly and stretching. A

huge yawn seized her, then she grinned. "A difficult business, this
collecting of gossip. If only it were so arduous at home!"

Everyone laughed, and the women departed.

Ross's mind was full of conflicting thoughts—and from the look of

Eveleen, who rubbed her thumbnail absently back and forth over her lower
lip, she felt the same.

If only he could get out and—

"Come on," he said. "Let's call it a day."

CHAPTER 16

"FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGIST," Gordon Ashe said to himself as he

finished loading the recycler-bound wagon, "being a trash man is a golden
opportunity."

His tone was somewhat grim, and certainly ironic, but he did believe

there was a great deal of truth in what he'd said just the same.

The grimness came of the fact that the recycle transport system had

obviously been breaking down for many years, and it was apparently
easier to get some unfortunate Nurayil to see to it than to bother with
replacement parts or a new system.

The wagon worked, like the rail-skimmers, on the maglev principle:

super-conductive magnets floating above buried rails. But it was obviously
much older, slow, and it was up to Gordon to pick out the little plants that
insisted on taking root all along the track. His unknown predecessor had
not bothered.

The loader system had long since ceased to function, leaving the trash

to be loaded by hand.

This way, at least, Gordon got a good look at the House of Knowledge's

castoffs—everything they did not run through the plumbing recycler. Even
if he had had an automated loader, he still would have sorted the trash,
partly to examine it, and partly in case there was some way that Saba
could get a message to him.

Paper and pen seemed to be out. But he knew she had at least one data

disk in her laptop; if her machine had not been confiscated, perhaps she
would slip a disk into the waste, which he could then read in his own
machine.

Except how to get it back to her? Well, no need to think that out. She

probably had already dismissed the idea; at least no disk had appeared.
He hoped because there was no need yet for such a drastic move.

As he grunted a bulky, heavy lump of metal into the wagon, he

distracted himself momentarily with speculating what it might have been
used for. Nothing came to mind. It looked like an old internal combustion
engine block crushed by a four-dimensional waffle iron.

And it weighed a ton.

Clang! Klunk! He paused, breathing heavily, thinking over what really

concerned him: the code messages he'd received the night before.

They were all repeats: "searching."

"deportment lessons."

"well-being."

"no danger."

Frustrating. He wanted a real status report—he also wanted to find out

what she was learning, and to learn it as well.

He sighed, and stared at the jumble of material on the loading

platform. What were these things, and what had they been used for?
Among the detritus were what looked like a steel umbrella, half inside-out;

an exploded plastic xylophone; and a half-dozen foamed alloy shoe trees
made for someone twenty-five feet tall with feet that had toes at both
ends. Alien trash.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,"

he muttered. If Arthur C. Clarke had had this job, Gordon thought, he
might well have added that such a technology's discards are
indistinguishable from art. Well, bad art, anyway. Most of the discards
looked like the kind of incomprehensible sculptures that often showed up
in public places back home on Earth.

He wondered what the other Nurayil thought of it, or how much

awareness they had of the technology that sustained this odd civilization.
One thing seemed sure: it was slowly winding down, for down the
timeline, the civilization definitely had crumbled.

How long, he wondered, could the ancient Inca, for instance, have kept

a twentieth-century city running? Would they have mastered the
technology, destroyed themselves with it, or merely ridden it down into
ruin as the machines decayed for lack of knowledge? Was that what had
happened here?

He sighed as the last of the stuff slid into the wagon.

Already he was wet from the misting rain that never seemed to stop,

but at least it kept him somewhat cool. Shaking the rain from his eyes, he
slid onto the control seat and activated the wagon.

It shuddered, whining on an excruciating note, then slid forward at a

snail's pace. Once he was well out of sight of any of the guardians, he slid
up his sleeve and glanced at his watch. Good. He'd calculated well; he'd
arrive at the recycle building in plenty of time, then.

The wagon lumbered shudderingly along its route. Occasionally it

lurched and almost stopped. Gordon jumped out each time and used a flat
tool he'd found to wedge up growing plants whose roots were already
fouling the rails. The wagon moved so slowly that he'd only have to run a
few steps to catch up.

Back to communication—and the next problem. From Saba there was

not enough, but from the Russians there was too much.

He thought over what he'd say to the two Russian men, and how he'd

say it. He'd decided against taking the women to task. He wouldn't need
to, if Misha was cooperative.

And he did believe the women when they'd said they hadn't

communicated with Misha or Viktor. For Vera, though, it wasn't for lack
of trying, for she'd been pulsing Misha just about every night. Was she
trying to get him to talk real-time? Apparently he hadn't responded—but
he'd been pulsing Irina in turn. And she'd been obeying the command to
keep silence.

Gordon did not want to have to say anything to Vera. The mission was

too important. He did not want to risk bad blood with any of the Russians.
Perhaps she didn't intend to talk to Misha, only to get that return
pulse—just as Gordon himself did each evening with Saba—but still, he
needed to make sure that the orders were kept, at least until they knew
they were safe. And it was always easier to remonstrate with men.

He grimaced at the thought, and shook his head.

Slowly the wagon trundled through a tunnel of green growth. He'd be at

the recycling building very soon.

His thoughts were abruptly splintered when he heard what sounded

like voices—human voices. Children's voices?

He looked around. Nothing.

He forced himself to scan more slowly, each tree and fern. Still nothing.

Once the light shafting weakly through the thin rain clouds overhead
seemed to darken for a moment, and he looked up, but of course only saw
the canopy of jungle growth, and beyond it the gray of clouds.

Now there was silence, except for the quiet tick and plop of raindrops

on broad leaves.

He breathed deeply, wondering if he'd possibly imagined the voices.

The heavy scents of the jungle tickled the back of his sinuses.

He was still listening, and watching, when the wagon abruptly emerged

into a cemented area. Around the perimeter there were cracks, with
rootlings and little plants thriving; it was strange to think that this would

all be utterly overgrown down the timeline in the present. Was the science
team walking around this very area right now?

He shrugged away the fancy. The wagon slid smoothly now toward the

building. Lights rippled above an access door, which then slid up.

Gordon jumped off the wagon, which would finish its job automatically

within the building, and emerge empty through the adjacent access.

He started walking around the cement apron, looking for the

Russians—or anyone else who might be about.

No one else seemed to be lurking, which was good. He'd deliberately

picked noon, having discovered that most of the other beings in the
Nurayil part of the city preferred dawn for their recycling, and of course
the mysterious Yilayil did their disposal during the night.

He slowed his steps, walking closer to the jungle. No one in sight.

He'd nearly completed a full circle when he heard a quick whistle—not a

Yilayil whistle, but a familiar melody, an old jazz tune.

He stopped, his head jerking up, and he saw Misha lounging against a

tree, his long blond hair backlit by the weak sunlight. Like a shadow,
Viktor loomed at his shoulder, still and quiet as the trees around them.

Gordon finished his circuit, stepped off the cement apron, and joined

them. "Is there a reason why we're hiding?" he asked.

"Yes," Misha said, smiling slightly.

In surprise Gordon waited for an explanation.

Instead, Viktor jerked his head toward the shadowy undergrowth

behind him, and took off down the trail. In silence Gordon followed, Misha
behind him.

They walked for a short time, emerging on a mossy outcropping just

beneath the spreading canopy of a tree whose fringed leaves were a deep
blue-green. A natural fence of rocks blocked one end, beyond which the
cliff fell away three or four meters to a swift-moving stream.

Gordon entered the little area, saw packs and equipment neatly stored,

and realized that this was the men's current campsite.

"Welcome home," Misha said. "At least, home for two days. We're

almost finished at this end of the district. Coffee?"

Gordon did not know how the insouciant Russian had managed to

smuggle it in, but he knew an extravagant gesture when he saw one. "Love
some," he said, matching Misha's casual tone—as if they had it every day.

Of course, maybe the Russians did.

Misha snorted a laugh. Even Viktor smiled slightly before he scanned

the sky with quick thoroughness, then ran down to the stream to scoop up
a pan of water.

When he returned Misha had a small fire going—almost smokeless,

Gordon noted. How much experimentation had gone into finding out
which deadwood was safe to burn?

No one spoke until the pan was set on a tripod over the fire, then Misha

looked up at Gordon. "Questions?"

"How about a report?"

The Russian shrugged, an elegant movement. "In essentials, we have

nothing. We have been over the Nurayil burial site twice, sounding for
these." He touched his jaw, and Gordon thought of the implants the
Russians all had in their teeth. "Nothing."

Gordon nodded grimly. In their first briefing, Zina had told him about

the implants, stating that even if the bodies were cremated by normal
means, the implants would still give off a signal. This was how the First
Team had found their biologist in the first place; scanning for the signal
was a part of their regular routine.

"Go on," he said.

"We've been working out in a circle—but our speed has been impeded

by these damn flyers we saw on Day One."

Now Gordon understood the cover, and the scanning. "Flyers," he

repeated.

Misha and Viktor both nodded.

"They spotted us the morning of Day Two. The rain had started, and

there were no shadows. We didn't think to look up," Misha said.

Viktor added, in heavily accented English, "Make no noise."

"Heard nothing, saw nothing. They must have spotted us from above,

and they swooped down." Misha demonstrated. "Screaming."

"Words," Viktor added that in Russian.

"We took off for the thickest cover, and outran 'em. They've been

circling the entire area ever since. Slow flights. Have to assume they're
looking for us," Misha said. "We hid out entirely the second day, and most
of the third. By the fourth we saw a pattern: crepuscular hours preferred."

Gordon nodded. "Dawn and dusk. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it?

Can't be out at night, not if they aren't sanctioned by the Yilayil, and
noontime flying would be hot work when the sun's out."

Misha gave his elegant shrug again. "I do not know. So anyway, we

work then, and keep under cover at dawn and dusk."

"And ping Irina," Gordon added drily.

Misha grinned. "Boredom. What is the danger of a single ping? I see

you are pinging Saba every night."

Gordon said, "She's locked up in the House of Knowledge. They took her

on sight." And he went on to give the Russians a full report, starting with
the statue of Saba awaiting them, and ending with an outline of everyone's
activities to date.

Misha listened closely, his challenging smile fading. At the end, he said,

"Much to be discovered, then. Your suggestions with regard to these
flyers? We know they're searching for us, but not why. Could be that
roasted Russki is their favorite appetizer."

"I haven't seen any in the Nurayil district," Gordon said. "But I'm

limited in my movements. I can ask the others. If the flyers are not trying
to integrate themselves into the society, it could be for a number of

reasons, but we'll have to assume for now that their reasons won't advance
our goals any. I'd say play least-in-sight for now."

Viktor gave a short, sharp nod.

Misha spread his hands. "You're the boss."

Gordon, looking from one to the other, suspected that some arguing

had taken place—Viktor pleading caution, and Misha wanting action.

"Keep searching," Gordon said. "There has to be a sign of them

somewhere. I can't believe the First Team was taken off the island, not
without leaving some sort of clue."

"Ah." Misha looked down at the water, which was just beginning to

boil.

He carefully measured out a small portion of brown powder from an

airtight bag, and cast it into the bottom of the pan. A rough-and-ready
way to make coffee, but as the delicious aroma rose up, Gordon found
himself breathing deeply.

They shared a cup each of the coffee. Gordon drank his right down to

the bitter residue.

"Thanks," he said at last. "I needed that."

"We'll escort you back," Misha said with an airy wave of his hand.

"Time to get to work."

Viktor had already broken down the firepit and cleaned the pan. Their

gear was stowed; they could pick up and move fast at a moment's notice.

The return trip was accomplished in silence. The two men disappeared

into the jungle shortly after Gordon stepped onto the apron and found his
empty wagon waiting.

He activated the control, got aboard for the slow ride back. For once he

was not impatient of the long trip, for he had much to think about.

SABA WALKED DOWN the ramp to the translation room. If she turned

her head too fast, a faint headache throbbed at her temples. She
concentrated on breathing slowly, in and out, as she walked the rest of the
way.

Everything seemed a little too bright, a little too loud this morning. Yet

there was nothing loud, or glaring, in her surroundings. Her slippers
whispered on the cool flooring, and her robe swayed gently against her
body, one side, the other. The muted lighting seemed exactly the same as
it had for the past week; there were no shadows anywhere, no bright
lances of light, so it could not have been intensified. But her eyes seemed
overly sensitive. All her senses, in fact, seemed heightened, she realized as
she listened to the rhythmic swishing of her flaxen robe.

Has to be just stress, she thought as she entered the huge viewing

room. I'm fragmenting my focus too much—it has to be that.

As she passed down the long rows of working people, she performed a

quick mental assessment.

Her first priority, she still believed, was to find whatever message she'd

left herself from the past—if it could be found. That had meant a lot of
furtive, desperate searching. Then she had her deportment lessons, which
required a desperate mental shift; just the day before she'd found herself
utterly lost as they used references to time that the First Team had not
even hinted at. And threaded through all this were her doubts about the
other beings here, their motivations, their intentions toward her. And of
course she had the mission to think about.

On top of it all, the frustration of being limited to pulse code

communication once a day.

I have some important task to perform, she thought, trying to gather

her strength. I know that I do, or that statue of me would not be out front.

That was another goal: to find out who the other statues depicted, and

why they were so honored. But when she asked Virigo or Rilla, they gave
her meaningless names, and whistled the traditional phrase for "Nurayil
honored as Yil"—which told her exactly nothing.

Perhaps she would find out more in the records. As yet the terminal in

her room had not been activated. Just as well; she could barely read Yilayil
script. The First Team had only given them the basic consonant sounds,

assuming a phonetic alphabet. And superficially it was; foreign languages
were diligently reproduced phonetically.

Thinking this, she glanced down at the nearest person, a weedy young

Virigu—a male. They were very rare, for some reason; most of the Virigu
were female.

He watched a tape on a terminal, his spidery fingers blurring across

pads on his console as he translated what he saw.

She paused and looked around.

That's what they were all doing—translating into Yilayil tapes taken

from ships. They listened to the voices on the tapes and translated; Rilla
had told her that when she had mastered deportment (a term that also
included mastery of language, apparently) she would translate tapes as
well.

That had both excited and frightened her. Were there tapes from the

First Team somewhere? Or would she be trained in some other language,
to translate tapes from some unknown world?

Or had other humans come, before or after the First Team?

Her headache throbbed, and she tried to dismiss the thoughts. Instead,

she went back to considering the Yilayil script: phonetic for Nurayil, but
for the Yilayil it was apparently ideographic—each symbol standing for a
concept, and not just a sound.

"Saba of Far Star."

She had reached the far end; Zhot awaited her.

He vanished into the chamber beyond the viewing room, and Saba

found that the rest of her "class" was there—both Nurayil, which she found
reassuring, and both trying to master the language.

Zhot was an ancient male of a species the name of which had not been

mentioned to her. He was shaped rather like a tall, supple seal, but he
moved like a reptile. His round body was covered with nubbly
sandy-colored scales, except for his face, which was whiskery with tiny
antenae constantly waving and vibrating. She had not seen his legs

beneath his robe, but when he walked, the motion was sudden and
noiseless. The first few times she'd seen him, it had unnerved her.

His voice, though, was like liquid music.

"We begin today our discourse upon the experience of

[disorder-resulting in matter-energy inert/uniform] and its expression."

Disorder… Saba struggled desperately between Yilayil and Terran

language. Entropy? she thought, confused.

Zhot gave her no time to consider as he emitted a long trill, most of

which escaped Saba at first, and then looked at the class expectantly.

Both the others were silent, Saba noted. Were they as confused as she?

She turned her mind to the trill, as Zhot repeated it more slowly.

Grateful, she pounced mentally on each phrase. There was very little
information on the concrete layers used in everyday discourse, and the
higher-level modulations all concerned the strange tenses and
temporalities that they had discussed the day before.

Saba forced herself to relax. It was impossible to translate those levels

into any language she knew; they had to be experienced, in the same
fashion as music. But the rational part of her mind insisted on scattering
phrases across her consciousness.

Consequence-of-act… as is-was… echo back from will-be… conditional

termination-of-volition…

Her mind refused the rest. She shook her head.

"It is not true for servants of knowledge," a Virigu stated at last.

Zhot nodded.

The second being added, in slow, careful Yilayil, "We speak of what we

know/experience."

Zhot turned expectantly to Saba.

She finally felt forced to say, "I don't understand."

He paused for what seemed a very long time.

"Your people tell stories, yes?"

She nodded, but he did not respond, and she suddenly realized that the

gesture perhaps had no meaning for him. Hastily she wet her dry mouth,
and whistled, "Yes, we tell stories."

"Contrary to fact, and true?"

"Yes."

"Teller of stories sees those-who-live in story all-at-once." Then he

fluted another phrase with upper-level modulations, similar to the first. "If
story not satisfactory at end, lives of those-within changed at beginning.
They will differently, act differently." Another trill, again with the same
bizarre tenses.

Was this mode of discourse for storytelling, then?

"We/you live in entropy, struggle against entropy, but not in stories.

There we live outside entropy."

"Yes," she said, hesitantly.

"So, too, we/you know entropy on two levels, more. So, too, servants of

knowledge speak of entropy on two levels, more."

"But we do not experience it that other way."

"No," said Zhot. "We"—and here she heard the emphasis—"do not. We

are servants." Again a complex fluting.

Subject is-was-will-be servant to those who choosing-choices-made

dance above decay.

"The Yilayil?"

Zhot emitted the choking snort she had guessed meant laughter in his

race. Another trill.

Choices made-making termination-of-volition for subjects.

A thrill shot through her. Down the timeline the Yilayil were savages.

"Then Yilayil…" She hesitated, not wanting to give away the fact that

she knew anything about time further on. "Decay?"

Zhot trilled again.

Improper transition in mode of discourse.

Saba stifled the urge to groan and hold her head. Instead, she listened

as the other two took up the conversation and labored through a
painstaking discussion of tenses. Saba had tremendous difficulty following
it—her headache was considerably worse at the conclusion of the
lesson—but at least she was fairly sure of one thing. The Virigu and the
other being were exactly as confused as she was.

CHAPTER 17

EVELEEN LOOKED AT the Jecc swarming about her, all at waist

height, and thought, They are like children. They moved fast like children,
rammed each other and exchanged buffets and shoves, and their squeaky
whistles and drones all reminded her of children. Unpleasant, nightmarish
children, to be sure. There was nothing cute or appealing in the stares
from those deepset eyes, or the rows of needle-sharp teeth in the coldly
grinning beaklike snouts. Or in the little hands— or tentacles—that tried
to steal parts from Eveleen's pile if she didn't watch them constantly.

She twisted her head, working her neck as she looked about the

cavernous assembly chamber. It smelled of hot alloys and lubricant and a
little like burned toast. That was the Jecc. They all smelled a little like
burned toast sprinkled with rosemary.

How long would she and Ross have to work among them? As her fingers

operated automatically at disassembling a cooling unit and replacing the
worn-out parts, she considered the other beings in the department.

No one seemed to make any rules. The Virigu in charge certainly didn't.

They merely oversaw, ordering people about when there was apparently a
need. People reported for work when they wished to, apparently, and took
days off when they wanted.

In this department, as yet no one among the few other species had been

promoted—or transferred—which gave her nothing by which to calculate
the duration of their probable stay. As for the Jecc, any number of them
might have been transferred or promoted, but they looked so much alike
that it was difficult to tell.

Not that they were interchangeable. They were all more or less the

same size and mass, and they all wore identical plain coveralls, but their
gray-green skin was mottled and stippled with iridescent blue dots. She'd
realized one morning that the dots made subtle patterns, when a couple of
them actually sat still enough for her to scrutinize them. And she
memorized the pattern, endeavoring to watch these particular Jecc.

So she did—that day. She saw the one with the snail-shell whorls clip at

least three connectors from other Jecc; the one with the braided whorls
seemed to concentrate on stealing from other beings.

The next day, though, neither of them was present—at least, as far as

she could tell. After she finished reconstructing one directional unit she
moved about, on the pretext of getting more parts, and scrutinized as
many stationary Jecc as she could—and though she did see that
snail-whorl pattern again, it seemed tighter, smaller, with more dots.
Different.

All new Jecc?

Or was the blue stuff paint?

She asked Vera that night, "Have you found out any more data on the

Jecc?"

"No," Vera said, pausing in the act of wolfing down some food. She

grinned briefly. "All the others do is curse them. No one likes them.
Apparently they don't even live in the city, though how that works is
beyond me. But the Moova, everyone else, call them pests." She swallowed,
and sighed. "Sorry—no chance to eat today."

Irina nodded her sleek head. She ate daintily, as though she sat in a

duchess's formal dining room. "I begin a new labor today." She frowned,
massaging her forehead with her fingertips. "Excuse me—my English
seems to be regressing. I began a new job today. I work now for Lootignef
of the Moova."

"And I for Toofiha," Vera added.

"Moova?" Ross asked.

Both Russians nodded.

"And they don't let you eat on the job?"

Both heads shook decisively.

"They are rivals," Vera said. "We did this on purpose, hoping to find

out more information that way. The Moova are very jealous of data, and of
their foods."

"Sure is good, though," Ross said, holding up a thin roll of some kind of

rice-bread mixed with seasoned vegetables. "Big change from the raw
stuff, healthy as it might be."

Vera sighed. "How I dream of coffee! And ice cream. And torte…"

Eveleen saw Irina glance over at Vera, her black eyes narrowed. Irina's

refined face was largely serene, but that could very well be a facade. Right
now, if Eveleen was any judge of character, it seemed that the ex-ballerina
was thoroughly tired of her partner.

Of course Eveleen said nothing. She just continued to watch as she

worked through her katas. Her stomach was hungry, but her joints were
achy and her neck tight. The only remedy, she felt, was to work out, which
she couldn't do while full. Her share of the food sat on a napkin next to
Ross.

Ross was frowning. "They say bad things about the Jecc? Isn't that

anti-deportment? Anti-harmony?"

"Not," Irina said precisely, "if what you say is to point out ways in

which the Jecc are anti-harmonious."

Eveleen snorted. "I guess they aren't going to get promoted to the next

level anytime soon, eh?"

Vera said, "The Moova say they don't try to harmonize, but I don't

know how much of that is just talk. No one has much real data about
them, this I can say with certainty. To bring up the subject is to hear, over

and over, that they are thieves and pests—stealing things that don't even
matter."

Just then Gordon's familiar tap sounded at the door, and Ross moved

to open it.

Gordon came in, bringing a swirl of rain-scented air with him. "Big

storm out there," he commented.

"Must be," Eveleen said, sniffing for that rain scent. It was already

gone, filtered out. The ubiquitous clean, sterile air smelled just as
always—and of course there were no windows to look out of. Eveleen
fought a sudden surge of claustrophobia and forced up the pace of her
kata. "Any news?" she asked over her shoulder.

Gordon shook his head. "Status quo." He sat down and Vera handed

him his food. "Pollen count still up?" he asked.

Vera said, "It is. Very high." She smacked her lips as she finished her

food.

Eveleen watched Irina, who worked studiously through her food as if

the room were silent. Was there another reason why the two had not taken
jobs at the same place? Not necessarily, Eveleen thought. Irina, at least,
was too dedicated to the mission. She wondered if Vera even knew how
irritating she was to her partner.

With a snap and whirl, she finished her last move, then she sank down

next to Ross. Gratitude for his presence suffused her. She might be feeling
claustrophobic—restless—but at least she had him. And wasn't it better to
let the others do their jobs than to think about going out and exploring
during the long evenings?

Ross sat back. "Bringing me to what's been bothering me since the first

briefing, and that is: who decides? Are the Yilayil watching us when we
work? Or do the various Virigu spy on us and send in reports? Or what?"

"Another thing for us to discover," Gordon said equably.

Eveleen noted the tense postures and tight faces in the others. "What I

wish," she said, "was that we had TV. I'd even watch alien TV. These
nights sitting in this room get a little old."

And she saw an immediate reaction in the two women. Sympathy now

flooded her, but she tried to hide it; though the authorities on Earth had
been worried about married agents in the field together, they probably
hadn't considered what a relief it would be to be penned up with someone
you love, rather than someone else with whom you might have little in
common outside of the job at hand.

Ross, however, was frowning. "That's another thing," he said.

"Deportment—conformity. The Nurayil are kept utterly in the dark, far as
I can see. We don't know what our labor is worth. We don't have access to
what passes for news, or any kind of data. We don't even get local
entertainment."

"I can address that," Gordon said as he worked his neck by twisting his

head slowly back and forth. His expression was calm, as always, but his
blue eyes were tired. "Every race has its own entertainment—I see it as I
pass through the city on my rounds. The Yilayil don't seem to care what
beings do in their own space, just as no one has interfered with our
laptops or our brief spurts of signal. And someone, at least, has to know.
The technology here is sufficiently advanced that it seems safer to assume
that they do, rather than the opposite."

Irina nodded. "This is so. I have seen the Moova gathered round their

gyoon—" And, gesturing with her long hands, she described a round flat
plate on a table that projected holographic images. "It looked to me like
Moova writhing underwater, but they were very intent."

"Sounds like gargling," Vera put in with a grin. "I have seen this as

well." Her round face was briefly serious. "But it is only in private—not
when they interact with the rest of Nurayil."

Good spy work, Eveleen thought, and her appreciation for the Russian

women increased. They've seen more than we have. Again—stronger—she
felt that intense urge to be out and exploring, but she repressed it. If she
went, Ross would go—Ross, who always took chances. Thinking about
what had happened to the First Team's biologist always cooled her wish to
see Ross out taking risks.

She stole a look at Ross—just in time to catch a glance from his

narrowed eyes, his dark brows quirked. What was he thinking? For once
she couldn't guess at his thoughts.

"I am tired," Irina said suddenly. "I think it is time to sleep."

Vera yawned. "I must admit I have had a headache most of the day. I

need sleep as well."

Gordon smiled, said, "Maybe it's something in the air— I've had that

headache as well."

Vera said, "The pollens I can measure for we are supposedly immune

to. But we have to accept that there might be others that we cannot
measure for."

Gordon nodded. "Maybe that's it. Allergies! What a planet! Well, on

that note, I think I'll call it a night." He stood, and followed the two women
out, everyone wishing one another good night and good rest.

As Ross turned away from the closed door, he said, "Get the feeling

everyone is sick of everyone else?"

Eveleen gave her head a shake. "I get the feeling that everyone feels

lousy, and no one wants to complain." She decided not to mention that
glance she'd caught from Irina— not until she knew she was right. To
speculate without facts felt too much like gossip, and even though it was
only Ross, what she said might affect how he responded to the others. And
Irina, at least, Eveleen thought with sudden conviction, was very, very
observant.

"They're not the only ones," Ross said, surprising her. "I have to admit

it's hard to think with this headache on me."

"You didn't mention it," Eveleen said, instantly concerned.

He shrugged, an abrupt motion that made it clear how much he

loathed any kind of personal weakness. "What can I do about it?
Complaining would bore us both."

"Mentioning a headache isn't exactly complaining," Eveleen said wryly.

"As it happens, I've been feeling achy all day. Not so much my head as my
joints. Neck."

Ross looked up, frowning. "Gordon said allergies, but maybe it's

something more than that. Think we're getting sick? Not just us, but the

whole team?"

"Oh, lord, I hope not," Eveleen exclaimed. "I don't want to even think

about what kind of alien microbes we might be fighting…" Horrible
scenarios reeled through her mind—the Jecc carrying some kind of
dangerous virus, Ross and Eveleen exposed, and exposing the others. Or
was it the Moova, through their food?

She shook her head firmly, wincing against a pang in her temples.

"No," she said out loud. "I won't think about it—not until I have evidence."

"In that case," Ross said with a twisted grin, "let's do what Gordon and

the Russians are probably doing right now: let's break some pain reliever
out of our packs and get some rest."

A WEEK LATER, they still felt much the same.

Ross had stopped taking anything but the anti-allergens. He'd already

run through half his allotment of pain killers, and though he didn't say
anything, his grim thought was if they felt any worse, they'd need them.

They certainly hadn't gotten better. After a couple nights, Gordon got

everyone to state their symptoms so he could keep a record, just as the
First Team had reported, in detail, their malaise a month or so into their
stay.

"I thought the medical brains had decided it was allergies," Eveleen

said to Ross one day when they were walking to work. "Didn't they say that
at our first briefing?"

"I can't remember what anyone said," Ross admitted, grinning.

The rain was very heavy, and most beings were under the awnings to

avoid it. Ross and Eveleen had donned their rain ponchos and walked
right through the deluge.

"Ahhh," Eveleen said, taking a deep breath. "It might just be

psychological trickery, but I feel like the air is cleaner."

"So you do think it's allergens making us sick?" Ross asked her.

She shrugged, giving him a wry look. Her face was slightly tense, and

her eyes shadowed from broken sleep, but she didn't look dangerously sick.
She'd better not, he thought. If she did get seriously ill, mission or not,
they were going back down the timeline to the sterile air of the ship.

"I don't know," she said. "How could I? I just imagine the air being full

of guck that our immune systems don't like. And when it rains like this, I
convince myself the air is purified, and I hope this stupid headache will
vanish."

Ross said nothing. He'd begun to wonder if he'd live with a headache all

his life. Even with the meds, it was never really gone.

"Well, we got every damn anti-allergen in us they could concoct," he

reminded her. "And the science team did do an allergen check when we
landed, remember?"

Her thin brows furrowed. "Hard to remember anything, except how to

build cooling units," she said with a soft laugh. "So you think what's hit us
is viral?"

"I don't know," it was his turn to say. "It can't be just exposure to the

Jecc or the Moova or one of the other races because Misha and Viktor are
apparently sick as well."

Eveleen sighed. "I'd forgotten that. Not that Gordon was exactly gabby

with the details."

Ross shrugged. "What's to detail? They feel much like we do, and they

haven't seen anyone—despite those flyers chasing them whenever they
catch sight of them."

They neared the big building housing Transport, and slipped back into

Yilayil. Ross could feel Eveleen's reluctance as strong as his own. It was
hard to think in any language when your head continuously ached—and
double that for an alien tongue.

Eveleen trilled the equivalent for: "I'll want something hot for midday

meal."

"A good idea," he responded, and they both fell silent.

Three or four weird purple-greenish beings moved in ahead of them,

reminding Ross of seven-foot-tall crosses between teddy bears and sharks.
They disappeared in the direction of the rail-skimmer body shop.
Apparently they were so strong they could lift most of the big alloy plates
that most other beings needed cranes for.

They were quiet, they worked hard, and they didn't give anyone any

trouble. Yet here they were, among the Nurayil.

Ross felt a surge of impatience. He hadn't voiced a growing conviction

even to Eveleen, but he was wondering if the whole deportment thing was
a myth in order to get free—or almost free—labor from all the other races.

The idea of his working so hard, while sick, in what might be a royal

scam put him in a thoroughly rotten mood.

The Jecc didn't help. When he and Eveleen got to their workstation, it

seemed like there were more of them than ever. He sniffed the gritty, oily
smells, and looked at the worn parts they were supposed to retool. When a
Jecc rammed against his hip as it scurried down an adjacent corridor, the
sudden jar sent a pang through his already aching head.

Annoyance crystallized into the need for action. He watched Eveleen

square her shoulders and march off to collect parts for her portion of the
day's work—wrapping them tightly in her rain poncho and holding it with
both hands. Then she disappeared in the direction of the assembly
benches.

Ross smiled to himself.

It was time, he decided, to do a little consciousness raising by showing

the Jecc just how it felt to be hassled.

So he shifted a big part into one hand, keeping the other lightly resting

against the cool alloy as he paced along a row of Jecc busily retooling
connectors and exhaust valves.

And when one reached to alter what Ross called the buffing machine

(though it didn't look remotely like any buffing machine you'd find in a
mechanic's shop on Earth), he whipped his fingers out and snagged a fine
set of data chips from where they stuck out of the Jecc's overall.

The creature didn't even notice, and Ross laughed silently to himself. So

his old skills hadn't left him, eh?

He'd given up that kind of life when he was recruited to the time

agents—but on this occasion, he was glad he remembered how to pick
pockets.

He watched the Jecc at intervals while finishing a piece of work. The

one he'd robbed discovered the missing chip, its head moving back and
forth, but then it got right back to work. No further reaction.

Ross went walking again, close behind a row of Jecc busy working

away. Two of them didn't bother glancing up, and both of them within
seconds were lighter of a filter and a measure tool respectively.

And so the day went.

Ross nearly laughed out loud a few times when he watched, from the

vantage of his workstation, his victims discover their losses. Ross was
careful to put his stolen booty in another location, usually in the parts
section, after he got it. He still didn't know why the Jecc stole and hoarded
parts that were readily available to everyone, but in case there was some
kind of mysterious personal bond with these bits of machinery, he didn't
want them to feel deprived. Just… warned? Startled?

He examined his own motivations as he finished a last buffing job. At

lunch he forebore telling Eveleen about his private game. He wasn't sure
she would agree, and she looked so headachy he didn't want to risk
making it worse for her.

Maybe it was stupid, but it felt right.

And so he decided to make a couple more five-finger discounts before

the day ended—and he'd try it again the next.

In fact, the idea of it made him look forward to another day for the very

first time since his arrival.

His first pinch was a bigger part, and the victim immediately turned on

a neighbor and exclaimed in an excited tongue that was definitely not
Yilayil. The neighbor touched the victim's muzzle, and it fell silent. Both
looked around in a manner that reminded Ross forcibly of guilty children.

He almost regretted his action, but not quite.

No, not quite. One more pinch, he'd promised himself.

He could see that Eveleen needed to quit for the day. Her hands moved

slowly, and the angle of her head was expressive of weariness. He realized
that he too was tired—only the adrenaline of his secret game kept him
going.

One more.

He saw a Jecc just turning away from a partially disassembled drive

unit. He reached, his fingers closed on the main component—

The Jecc's reaction was a blur. A fraction of a second later Ross found

his finger pinned to the workbench by a small hand as he gazed down into
yellowish-gray unblinking eyes.

CHAPTER 18

SABA PRESSED HER fingertips to her cheeks.

Hot.

It was no longer a matter of tiredness, she was definitely sick. And with

something she couldn't sleep off; Virigu had left her alone the day before
after twice trying to summon her to work. Did the Yilayil never actully get
sick? Or worse, was there some terrible taboo against illness? Saba had
realized she did not have the vocabulary to tell her tutors that she did not
feel well. She'd only said, repeating it several times, that she had to sleep
more. But it had sufficed—they left her alone.

And so she'd slept soundlessly for hours and hours.

Today she'd woken up feeling slept out—yet her body felt no better. She

was decidedly feverish, and weak.

She shook her head. Time to stop being stoic and break out the pain

relievers in her pack. She had a mission, she was the only one in this
particular position, and she was not going to allow some stupid virus or
flu to stop the work. Everyone else was doing their jobs, or Gordon would
have sent her the signal indicating an emergency.

Well, then. She could do hers as well.

So she rose, walked through the weird glue-field shower, dressed, and

took some medication, waiting long enough for it to start taking effect
before she left her room.

What I need, she thought as she moved slowly toward the tutorial

chamber, is to comprehend the gestalt of this place. Her attention was
fragmented, and her perception of the others was fragmented as well.

On Earth, this had always been her initial approach to any new

situation, to listen for patterns, for the music of the place. Though
sometimes that "music" was hard to hear, it had to be there.

That had been the most important lesson her mother had taught her.

From her father, a doctor, she had acquired intellectual curiosity and
ambition; from her mother, a wise woman of the Dorze, she had learned
that yets, vocal music, was in fact a part of human life.

Certainly it was among the Dorze, but her mother had convinced her

that all peoples made music, even when they were not necessarily aware of
it. To deliberately distort or deny music, as some modern cultures seemed
to do, was to dehumanize one, and the healthy person merely sought
music in other forms.

These beings are not human, Saba thought. But this language is music.

I think, therefore, that among those who can speak and hear, music must
be a universal.

And I must find the musical pattern here before I can try to understand

these people—and find out what it is I am here for.

When she arrived in the usual place, a breeze of cool, rainy-smelling air

drifted across her fever-heated face. She breathed slowly, her eyes closing.
It was wonderful, but it only lasted seconds.

When she opened her eyes, Virigu was before her.

"I, Virigu," she began, "take you now to the place where we store

knowledge."

Saba wondered if her day of sleep had been misinterpreted, but unless

someone said something threatening, she refused to worry. It was going to
take all her energy just to follow this new lesson—and to work on the task
she had set herself.

The new lesson proved to be with the Yilayil computers. Her delight

and curiosity, however, were soon quenched by the stressful task of
learning what each keypad meant. They did not correspond with the
phonetic letters that the First Team had taught them; instead, they bore
idealized keystrokes that were pressed in combination to build up the
Yilayil ideographics, which Virigu now made clear it was time to learn.

That meant thinking in Yilayil, and distilling symbols— alien

symbols—into meaning for a human being.

Virigu sat next to her at another keyboard, pressing one key at a time,

while complicated symbols assembled themselves on the terminal.
Patiently, calmly, she described each, then had Saba run through the
definitions after which she practiced five over and over, one for each digit
on her hand. The groups of five seemed a considerate way of teaching, but
Saba wished she could learn this in twos. Or one at a time.

Time sped by. She had the first grouping down and was superficially

acquainted with the second group when subtle bell tones, just barely
heard, indicated it was time for a change.

They moved down to the refectory and Saba forced herself to drink

some of the soup that all the others were taking. She knew that hers
was—somehow—deemed appropriate for her biochemistry, for a quick
glance in all the bowls showed different colors and consistencies for
various races.

But a tiny portion of her mind was afraid that the food might be part of

her illness; at any rate she had no appetite. Still, she forced herself to eat
the soup.

Afterward it was time for another session with Zhot.

This time the subject was knowledge.

The other two tutorees were not present, only Saba, Virigu, and Rilla.

Again—as it had been for the… her head panged as she tried to count

up the days, all so alike. Three weeks? Four? As it had been all along, the
higher-level modulations all incorporated strange tenses and conditional
temporalities that seemed to confuse even Rilla and Virigu, it seemed.

Yet Zhot persisted. After he had asked each to define knowledge, he

turned to Saba, his whiskers stiff, his eyes intent.

As always when confronted by differing paradigms, Saba opted for the

simple.

"Knowledge," she trilled, "is that which is known."

Zhot droned/whistled a fast, complicated response.

Consequence-of-knowing… as is-was… unfolding from

actions-will-be…

Her mind refused the rest. She shook her head, saying, "What I am

perceiving is that knowledge stands outside of time."

"What is time?" was the immediate response.

"The… artificial measure we apply to the progression of events," she

said, again opting for the simple.

"Has time meaning for those who exist all-at-once?"

Saba bit her lip, fighting the urge to retort: Ask those who exist

all-at-once, when you find them.

She would not get angry. Conditional tenses—hypothetical states of

being—the tutoring sessions with Zhot always seemed to involve these
discussions. They hadn't yet touched on the other oddity in the language,
the bizarre sensory correlations. She wondered what they portended.

No wonder I'm not learning any faster, she thought with a bleak inner

laugh. What happened to teaching language by talking about things
beings actually do—like eating, sleeping, reading, working?

But again she forced her fragmenting thoughts to clear, and

concentrated.

"I cannot answer that," she finally said. "But I would surmise that it

does not."

Zhot whirled around, his reptilian speed startling.

"Beings outside of time experience those-who-live-in-time all-at-once."

Then he fluted another phrase with upper-level modulations, similar to
the first. "If beings-in-time not satisfactory at end-of-time, lives of
those-within altered at beginning-of-time. Knowledge is—" He trilled the
impossible tenses yet again.

Saba fought the urge to hold her head in her hands, and abruptly Zhot

whirled to Virigu and Rilla, this time demanding the purpose of
knowledge with these givens.

Rilla's answer was almost as difficult to follow as Zhot's, but not quite.

From it Saba gathered that the purpose of knowledge was to avert
entropy.

When she heard the term, she remembered the discussion during

which entropy had been the subject. Was there a connection after all?
She'd assumed that the discussion topics were random, formed around
various language lessons.

Nothing is accidental, she thought, feeling a visceral sense of warning.

Swiftly she reviewed the topics of discourse before her long sleep. One

day the growth of trees and the seeding of new. Another day, the measure
of celestial bodies moving through space. Before that…

"… dance-above-decay," Zhot's voice interrupted her thoughts, and

again she felt that inner zap.

There was something going on here—something she simply wasn't

getting. But she knew it was important.

She forced her mind to clear—but Zhot had apparently finished.

When Saba was back in her room, she found that the terminal had

been turned on, and it extended from her wall, with a little bench below it.

She drank some water, then sat down slowly. She traced the

key-groupings she'd learned, and watched the symbols flow across the

terminal. Then she tried two of the keys, just to see what happened—and
the original meaning did not compound. Instead, a third meaning flowed
on the terminal, something totally incomprehensible.

She sighed and went to lie down.

Time… no, don't think about their time. Her time. Time to stop

fragmenting.

Her message to self, Gordon, the mission, sickness, music, gestalt.

Everything must be dismissed except gestalt.

Gestalt outside-of-time?

Don't even think about it. First just gestalt.

She closed her eyes and slept.

RAIN SLASHED THROUGH the jungle growth, a steady roar that

covered the sounds of humans making their way at top speed. Gordon
followed Viktor and Misha, his mouth open to ease his breathing, his head
aching with every step.

Though the two Russians had readily admitted feeling the same

symptoms suffered by everyone else on the team, their speed seemed
undiminished. Could it be they felt less ill— that maybe living in the city
had a deleterious effect beyond whatever it was that had affected them all?

Gordon listened to Viktor's rasping cough, which intermittently

punctuated the rain sounds, and decided he'd withhold judgment on
relative intensities of illness.

Instead, he concentrated on moving with the same speed, an effort that

became increasingly difficult.

Then—just when Gordon was thinking he'd be forced to call a

halt—Misha whirled around and said, "Here it is."

Gordon bent over, his hands on his knees, and fought to catch his

breath. He noticed that both Viktor and Misha were breathing through

their mouths; Viktor had dropped to the spongy moss covering the
ground, but Misha leaned against a tree with a deceptively casual air.
Gordon watched, amused, as he said, "Here what is?"

"The last camp," Misha said, waving a hand as though producing a

magical scene.

Silently Viktor rose, digging in the tangled growth beneath a huge tree,

and pulled out a pack—fungus-encrusted, discolored—but still
recognizable as the type all the Russians carried.

Misha rummaged around under a semicircle of bright flowers,

revealing a ring of stones that had to have been deliberately set. Gordon
nodded, impressed with the detective work that had gone into this
finding.

Misha dug into one of the packs and pulled out a warped notebook. He

carefully opened it, and almost reverently held it out for Gordon's perusal,
his manner so far removed from his usual that Gordon knew before he
looked at it that this was a major find.

He looked down at the close Russian writing, and puzzled out a few

words.

This was definitely from the First Team—one of the agents. Gordon

recognized her name.

He looked up at Misha. "Svetlana."

Misha's face was uncharacteristically blank as he took the notebook

from Gordon's hands, but before the archaeologist could speak, he
gestured to Viktor, who handed him another notebook—and this time
neither of them made a move to take it back.

"We find nearby," Viktor said. "I show you his camp as well."

Gordon looked down at the notebook, then up. 'This one is Pavel's."

Misha nodded once. "I knew Pavel. I knew them all," he added, his

accent very strong.

"Have you read Pavel's notebook?"

Again Misha nodded. "Skimmed it only, soon as we found it. He was

the last. Svetlana here"—he indicated the notebook still gripped in his own
hand—"disappeared before Pavel did."

" 'Disappeared'?"

Once again Misha nodded, his mouth grim. "We shall have to read

these records more carefully, for much is not clear, but this I know. There
are no bodies here. And Pavel saw no one die, beyond that first death.
They just vanished. One by one."

CHAPTER 19

ROSS LOOKED DOWN into the Jecc's eyes, watching the pupils narrow

like a cat's, then widen again.

The Jecc chattered in a hissing language, then altered swiftly to Yilayil:

"My progeny will be swift!"

It grabbed for the tool, then scuttled away with a flick of its long tail.

Ross stared after the creature in blank surprise. He'd expected any kind

of reaction—anger, fight, outrage—anything but that. And why the
comment about progeny, or had he gotten the words wrong?

He'd scarcely had those thoughts when he felt the light touch of fingers

against his hip, and he looked down to see another Jecc scurrying off,
carrying the calibrating tool he had stuck in his pocket.

Ross gave a laugh, and turned back to his job—for now.

The war was on.

No, not a war. It was a game.

All the rest of the workday, Ross and the Jecc carried on this quick,

strange interaction. No longer did he find them shoving him out of the
way, or bumping him when he was busy—but all his small tools, especially
those he tried to hide in his pockets, disappeared. He marked each Jecc
who robbed him, and he made certain to get the tools right back again.

The calibrating tool must have exchanged hands six times— mostly

between Ross and two specific Jecc, one with a star made of purple dots
over one eye, and another who was distinguishable by the braided pattern
of dots down the back of its skull.

Ross began to see a pattern to the theft game. His calibrating tool,

which was in no way remarkable from any other tool supplied by the
Transport Department, would be nipped from him, and slid into a Jecc's
pouch beneath its coveralls. If he watched closely—without being obvious
about it—he could just see the edges of the pouch, though the Jecc kept
this portion of their bodies covered. These pouches reminded him of a
kangaroo pouch—or of a frog's mouth. After a time, the Jecc would reach
in again, with a furtive movement, remove the tool, and use it, or set it
nearby—and bingo! It would be stolen again.

That was the pattern: in the pouch, out—steal, pouch, out—disappear,

take back.

In the meantime the work progressed steadily. Faster than before. Ross

was aware of a change in atmosphere. No one disturbed him, though he
saw the Jecc bump up against Eveleen and the other non-Jecc beings,
exactly as they always had.

Ross found his job much easier, despite the game.

So he played it right until darkness—perceived through the big hangar

at the end of their workstation—began to fall. No more disabled
rail-skimmers had been brought in. The outside workers had already left
their jobs.

Ross was so bemused by the day's activities he was scarcely aware of

the usual headache and scratchy throat. It wasn't until Eveleen fell in
beside him, her eyes marked with tiredness, and her lovely voice sounding
slightly hoarse, that he remembered he'd meant to quit much earlier.

Sickness had become a part of life, it seemed.

Since there wasn't anything he could do, there was always distraction.

"The Jecc have pouches like kangaroos," he said to his wife as they walked
out hand in hand.

"Yilayil," she whistled.

Ross grimaced, and repeated his statement in Yilayil. Truth was, he'd

been thinking in English all day—not good for the mission, he realized. But
so much easier!

The word for pouch he didn't know—he created a compound, which

was often done in Yilayil. Eveleen nodded, brushing raindrops from her
face as she considered his words.

Ross went on to explain the theft game, and the unexpected results.

Eveleen's interest sharpened—he felt it, despite the steady rain pelting
against their rain gear. The tale took until they reached the building that
looked to him like a giant muffin—home.

Eveleen pushed her hood back from her face. Ross looked both ways; a

small, greenish being was just disappearing up the ramp, tentacles
swinging rhythmically. He waited until it was gone and bent to kiss the
raindrops from Eveleen's eyelashes.

She smiled, but nudged him silently to move on.

They did not talk until they were safely in their cell, and clean and dry.

Then she said, "I think it was dangerous to try that—"

"I know," he said, feeling a twinge of guilt.

Eveleen shook her head. "I'm not pointing fingers. It's not like I've done

anything for the cause."

Her back was to him. Was that bitterness he heard in her soft voice?

She couldn't be angry with herself for not having made any
discoveries—how could she?

Unbidden came his wish from the very first week—that he could get out

and poke around during the nights. Not get into trouble, of course, just do
some listening on his own. He shook his head, as if to banish the thought.

Eveleen took in a deep breath, turned around and smiled. "I was

thinking that your instincts have always been good. Maybe there's
something for us to learn in this weird Jecc game, with the tools and the
pouches and all."

Ross shrugged, fighting a huge yawn. "I don't see how. But one thing for

sure: they didn't get in my way. If anything, it seemed easier to do my
work. I used to have to wait for what I needed, but after that Jecc caught
me everything seemed to be there when I wanted it, and no one rammed
against me or upset my balance so I'd have to reconstruct."

"Maybe I ought to try stealing," Eveleen said with a wry smile. "It was

business as usual for me."

"I saw that too," Ross said. "And for all those other non-Jecc, stuck way

off in the corner."

"I think it's for self-protection," Eveleen said. "I'd been thinking we

ought to try to join them, if we can. At least the Jecc don't go
there—much. Don't bother them nearly as much as they do anyone directly
in their space."

"Maybe, but not yet—"

Ross stopped talking when the familiar tattoo sounded at their door.

"It's Gordon," he said, frowning. "He never arrives before Irina and

Vera."

"Uh oh," Eveleen said softly.

Ross sprang to the door and opened it.

Gordon came in, his bright blue eyes looking tired, but his mouth was

set in a hard line that reminded Ross of the old days—of impending
action.

"A find," Ashe said abruptly, running a hand impatiently through his

white hair to shake the raindrops off.

Eveleen pursed her lips. "The bodies—?"

"No." Ashe turned to her. "But new records. Misha and Viktor stumbled

onto a camp used by a couple of the First Team." He pulled a warped
notebook from his parka, its pages reminding Ross of lettuces. A hundred
years buried in a moist environment would do that, even in a supposedly
airtight pack; they were probably lucky the books hadn't rotted all
through.

"I'll be going through this more closely, comparing it with what records

we already have, but Misha and Viktor skimmed it and summarized its
contents."

"And the gist is—?" Ross prompted.

"The First Team disappeared one by one. They got sick beforehand, just

as we are now. They didn't get sick as early in their mission."

Eveleen and Ross both nodded, remembering the records they'd

studied.

"Apparently the illness worsened rapidly for them all, at least according

to one of these records. The other one is more cryptic."

Ashe paused. "Thirsty."

Ross moved to the other room. "I'll get you some water."

"Thanks." A few moments later, Gordon took the cup from Ross, drank

down the water, then leaned his head back against the wall.

"There's worse to come," Eveleen said wryly, "isn't there."

It wasn't even a question.

Ashe nodded once. "Worse—better, I don't know. It doesn't give us any

answers, only more questions. The short version is this: the team members
were not together, as we'd surmised."

"But that was orders," Ross protested. "If dangerous conditions

existed—"

"Those were orders, and they did apparently pull together, as we have

recorded by the records we found at the contact site. However, it must
have been after that person disappeared—"

" 'Disappeared'?" Eveleen repeated. "Not died?"

A knock at the door interrupted them, and Ross moved to let in the two

Russian women.

Quickly, while Vera passed out the evening's food, Ashe rapidly brought

the women up-to-date on the discussion so far.

Neither spoke until he was done. Then Irina said, in her slow, accented

voice, "They have disappeared one by one? What means this for us?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Gordon said. "Misha and Viktor

have found no human remains, and they have just about covered the
entire island. Misha wants to jump back to one of these campsites and
watch, of course."

Vera looked up sharply, her lips parted.

Irina shook her head, her fine brows creased slightly. "No. Is not a good

idea, not if they sickened rapidly. This disease we all share, it might be
more virulent a century ago."

"But if they just got sick and died," Eveleen protested, "then we'd find

bodies, right?"

"So we would think," Gordon answered. "Of course, it could be that

roving Yilayil or Nurayil scooped them up and obliterated them, although
we don't have any indication of this kind of burial custom. But maybe
death by illness is treated differently than death by execution, or death by
more natural causes."

Vera said softly, "Misha. He had friends with First Team…"

Gordon said in a gentle voice, "I know that. He explained—a little.

Misha is not exactly gabby with personal details." He smiled wryly, and
Vera smiled back, but her eyes remained troubled. "I made him promise
to do nothing until Zina is consulted."

Ross felt relief zing through him. "Good thinking. Throw this one in

their laps—let the scientists hash out what this sickness is, and all the rest
of it."

Gordon nodded. "I'm going to ask you to help me copy Pavel's notebook

out—I don't trust it not to disappear," he said to the women. "And
Svetlana's, which Misha insisted on keeping and translating himself, will
also be copied. He says he has the time when they're hiding from the
flyers. As soon as we have copies, I'll send Viktor forward to report, and
we'll wait on Zina's decision before we act."

Irina's brow cleared.

"Is good," she said in Russian, and then in English, "very good."

CHAPTER 20

SABA'S DISCOVERY OF the terminal in her room having been

activated was a signal to her that she must devote herself to this aspect of
the mission.

For two days she forced herself to sit at that terminal in her room,

alternately shivering with chills and panting from what seemed stifling
heat. She worked at mastering the Yilayil keypads.

Alternating between that and the records of the First Team on her own

laptop, her fevered mind constructed dream fantasies that seemed real.
When she did not work, she set the audio to play Yilayil music of the Great
Dance, the rising and falling voices reminding her somehow of the music
of the Dorze, at home in Ethiopia; music that was embedded in daily life,
and was heard continually during not just the little customs of each
day—waking, sleeping, meals—but during weddings and funerals, and in
the festivities occurring throughout the year.

She did not understand the music, not as she did that of the Dorze. She

had spent her childhood with Dorze music. As she listened to this music
she sensed a kind of kinship, a need—shared by two vastly different
peoples—to celebrate the dance of life and death in music.

But true understanding still eluded her. All her goals were still pieces.

Shards. It hurt to think, and though she fought the image, her mind
persisted in seeing her goals as jagged pieces of glass—or mirror—that
must be fit together. But she did not have to touch them, and bleed, for
willing ghost hands had appeared to do that: Katarina, the First Team
linguist, whose words Saba had perused so deeply for meaning that she
had committed them to memory—and began perceiving traces of the
personality who had spoken them.

When Saba's tired body forced her to lie down, she began holding

conversations with Katarina. She'd seen a photo of the Russian linguist
during one of the briefings back in the United States, and now she
envisioned that face, broad across the cheeks, wide-set dark eyes, dark

gray-streaked hair short and glossy. Katarina's Mongolian antecedents
looked out from the shape of her skull, strong and imperturbable and
brave.

Saba, from utterly different people, still felt a kinship with Katarina.

The ghost of the Russian woman sometimes seemed real, so strong was

Saba's dream state. "Listen," Katarina said, over and over. "Listen outside
of time."

More of the strange tenses.

Baffled by the bizarre temporalities of the language, Saba began

instead to explore the sensory contradictions. She discovered that one set
of keystrokes set up the modulation into the sensory mode, modifying
straightforward ideographs into strange little contradictory nuggets of
meaning. They were almost like Zen koans. Certainly the feel of a green
taste was just as ungraspable as the sound of one hand clapping.
Somehow, she began to sense, there was some connection between the
strange tenses and the contradictory sensory modalities. But she could not
grasp its wholeness.

"Gestalt," she said to her ghost. "I think this is what you were sensing,

was it not? You laid out the shards of this mirror."

"It is not a mirror," Katarina said. "It is a window." Katarina smiled,

her eyes narrowing to half-moons. "Find the gestalt, Saba Mariam. Find
the gestalt—set me free."

Saba dragged herself up from her bed, drank some water, then sat

down at her terminal. "Pieces," she murmured. "Pieces."

But again she ran into the mental wall of her own ignorance.

Finally she forced herself to rise, leaning against the real wall until the

waves of darkness throbbed through her brain and then died away. Then
she donned her robe and walked out in the direction of the translation
chamber.

She realized when she reached it that she had lost track of time. It was

late.

In fact, it was night, and only the Yilayil were about.

She began to retreat, for she knew the etiquette: not until she had been

invited could she interact with the Yilayil.

The sleek weasel-shaped beings ignored her, and she stood uncertainly,

until the wisp-wisp of a robe upon the floor brought her attention round.

Zhot stood there, still, his eyes unblinking.

"Come. Train," he droned.

Unquestioning, Saba followed him into the chamber beyond, where she

saw a terminal. She sank down onto the bench, resolutely dismissing the
ache of head and neck, and spread her hands lightly over the keypads.

They were too far apart for true comfort. Vividly she saw the long,

furred, double-knuckled digits of the four-armed Yilayil.

"Now," Zhot said. "Begin."

She tapped out the combinations she had learned, and then, when Zhot

said nothing, she went on to those she'd managed to puzzle out.

Moving with his accustomed fluidity, Zhot reached down to tap out a

new combination, which caused symbols to flow across the screen.

"See," he commanded. "And let go of the connections you impose…"

Again time streamed by, uncounted, as Saba worked under Zhot's

direction. Saba's fever slowly increased, noticed only on the periphery of
her attention: chills, heat, ache. She dismissed them all. She was aware
only that Katarina seemed to stand at her other shoulder, watching in
approval.

She remembered a brief discussion of synesthesia from her neurology

studies, how some people perceived shapes to have tastes, or colors
sounds. The instructor had said that no one really understood the
phenomenon, but that it was thought to emerge from the limbic system,
where symbols and emotions were correlated.

Where symbols and emotions dance, she thought suddenly. The

thought moved her hands, and a new combination of ideographs popped

up on the screen.

"You begin to perceive," said Zhot. She started. She had not realized he

was still standing there.

Saba did not understand what she had done, so she returned her

attention to her hands, and to the symbols scrolling across the screen.
Slowly, slowly, she was beginning to make sense of them; or rather, to stop
trying to force sense on them and let them speak—dance?—for themselves.

The organization was indeed akin to Chinese writing, something she

understood the guiding principles of, though she did not speak or read
Chinese.

But finding a familiar structure accentuated the kinship of beings

otherwise so far from one another in temporal reality. The miracle of
similar structure—of hands, and brain, and mouth to talk and eyes to
look—produced similarities in language. It was a bond, a universal bond.

It was exciting to penetrate it.

"I will find you, Katarina," she said to her ghost when, abruptly, Zhot

departed and she was left to find her way back to her room.

She collapsed in gratitude onto her bed, dropping immediately into a

deep sleep.

Thirst and chills forced her awake again. Groggy and cold, she rose to

draw water. The room lights came on as soon as she left the bed. She
reached to fill her water glass—then paused, activated the sonic screen,
and passed it through a couple times.

The water had registered as pure. She was sure the sonic screen killed

microbes… so why was she sick?

She sighed, filled the cup, drank thirstily. Then she reluctantly helped

herself to another precious dose of her medicine. She'd feel the fever drop
soon, and then she could work.

Restlessness brought her to her feet. She tabbed on the computer,

blinked at the blurry screen, then decided to wait until the medicine dose
had restored her equilibrium.

Instead, the restlessness distilled into a single, strong urge: for fresh air,

for light.

Was it morning? She would find out.

She passed her flaxen robe through the cleaner, then pulled it on,

sighing with relief as its folds draped softly down her body to the floor.
Then she tabbed her door open, and slid out, moving silently.

Not down. That way led only to the grand mosaic—suns and stars—and

the chambers of knowledge, more and more of them the farther down one
went.

Instead, for the first time, she turned her steps upward.

As she walked, she thought about the Yilayil metaphors and images.

One shard was the fact that human and Yilayil idiom evoked opposites: for
humans, upward and light meant freedom, opportunity, beauty.
Dancing—free—in the sun. How many earth cultures carried just such a
potent image?

For the Yilayil, harmony, the Great Dance, meant darkness. Downward

and dark were the preferred directions. Saba had unconsciously fallen into
the same thought pattern; that was inevitable when one focused one's
attention on achieving ti[trill]kee.

Upward was undesirable, upward was… danger?

She frowned, thinking over the little gestures, the modes of expression

she'd unconsciously assimilated while trying to reach for greater
understanding.

Was there danger? Her steps up the ramp did not falter. The desire for

light, for stillness and air, was too strong.

No one had forbidden her to go upward. Yet she had never seen anyone

go there. Still, this space was here, she thought, looking around. There
were even rooms.

She paused, laying a hand on a door. The rooms were far apart, but

they were there. Rooms—or passages?

She touched the silver control, and to her surprise, the door slid open.

She looked out—not in. This was not a room, it was a kind of balcony,

looking out at the morning sun above the tops of the buildings. In the
distance she could see the solid green line of the jungle, pressing up
against the city borders. And at one end, the edge of the long-abandoned
spaceport.

She stepped out onto the balcony, then stopped. Now visible from the

door was more space—and on it several still figures.

She saw three beings she did not recognize, but the fourth was Zhot.

He was not wearing his flaxen robe. Saba glanced down his body,

seeing the supple seallike muscle structure, the scaled skin. In the strong,
clear sunlight his skin had a greenish flush, almost a glow, overlaying the
sandy coloration she was used to seeing.

The urge to fling off her clothing—which suddenly felt heavy and

confining—seized her. How wonderful just to stand, breathing the fresh
air, and feeling the sunlight on face, skin, limbs!

She took a deep breath, then forced herself away.

She had work to do.

The urge stayed with her as she retreated back down the ramp to her

room. But duty steadied her, as always. It was morning, almost time for
her daily signal to Gordon. Now that she was away from the allure of the
sunlight, her eyes ached with the need for sleep, and her mouth was dry,
but duty had become habit, and habit steadied her mind. Anchored her to
reality.

What to do until the time for the signal?

She turned to her terminal, and touched the control. The screen lit.

Sitting down, Saba worked her fingers into one of the patterns she'd
recently learned. Without really considering what she was doing, she
tested her ability to tranliterate, and traced out Zhot's name.

To her surprise, a new screen flickered into place, offering her choices.

On her keypad, several keys lit with subtle color.

She touched the control that she recognized as indicating

world-of-origin.

And once again the screen rippled, this time showing a rapidly moving

vid of Zhot's people. Two voices whispered from the terminal's audio
system: one language she couldn't recognize at all, but the other was
Yilayil—someone's translation!

Curious, she watched what seemed rather like one of those travel vids

she used to view in school: Welcome to Kenya! or Welcome to Australia!
only this was more like the equivalent of Welcome to Earth! because it
featured the world's primary in a schematic, and an unfamiliar system,
zeroing in on the fourth body out.

Zhot's world was, like the Yilayil world, primarily water, only it seemed

to have two very long continents straddling either side of the equator. On
it Zhot's people seemed to be the most numerous beings, along with some
undersea creatures that might have been sentient, but after the brief
introduction, the screen paused and offered choices, this time showing
different beings.

History of races?

Saba touched the control that corresponded to Zhot's seal-people, and

watched in fascination. This time she listened to the Yilayil, not trying to
translate any single words, but letting the whole flow through her.

Zhot's people, the Valeafeh, seemed to have had technology for a very

long time. A matriarchy of loosely intersecting tribal families, they
fostered young of other races and in turn sent out their young males to
learn before coming back to settle down to service; the females stayed in
order to learn government.

Opposite from the Virigu? Saba thought, making a mental note to look

them up in their turn.

She found lots more information—including data on daily life. But

nowhere did she see a glimpse of any of the Valeafeh behaving as she'd
just witnessed Zhot behaving. Nor did any of them look green.

Strange! Had she inadvertently stumbled onto a custom that was taboo,

or at least forbidden witnesses? Saba decided that must be it, knowing

that any travelogue vid made about Earth would not include acts
considered private and intimate.

Well, at least Zhot had not woken from his meditation, or nap, or

whatever he'd been doing, and Saba decided she would not bring it up. No
harm done.

She glanced at the chrono. At last, time for her daily signal to Gordon.

She clicked the communicator on, and her thumb hovered over the

little plastic key she had used for so long to send the pulse codes.

For a moment she looked down uncomprehendingly at the

walkie-talkie's little display screen. Her vision, though blurry, was clear
enough to warn her that the usual pattern of green lights had altered.

She frowned, and held the device up to the light to reread the displays.

Then she identified the single button that had been blank for so

long—the frequency for speaking was now clear.

"Gordon?"

"Saba!"

WHEN EVELEEN AND Ross reached the Nurayil dorms, she gratefully

wiped her forehead as they passed inside, and let her breath out in a
whoosh.

"I don't know whether to be glad it stopped raining or not," she said to

Ross as they started up the ramp.

Ross grinned at her. "I'd wanted to see the sun for the past week or

three—but now I think I've had enough of it."

He squinted upward. "Okay, hear that? You can go back to rain now."

Eveleen laughed. "At least abate the humidity."

"With a jungle a stone's throw away?" Ross retorted. "Not a chance."

"Well, I wish there was a way to get a weather report— either that or to

get air-conditioning in the—" Eveleen stopped when she saw Gordon
standing outside their room.

She felt Ross tense up beside her. Something had happened.

Nobody spoke until they'd passed inside. Then Gordon said, "The

frequency cleared. I don't know why, or what it means, but at least I can
talk to Saba."

"And?" Ross prompted in a sharp voice.

Gordon gave his head a shake. "She's sick. Tried to downplay it, but I

suspect she's much sicker than we are."

"Damn," Ross breathed. "What do we do? Pull her out?"

Gordon said, "Even if we could—which I doubt—she won't come. Insists

she's close to some kind of breakthrough. When I tried to get her to
explain, I'm afraid she scared me. Made little sense. Yet it's apparent she's
gotten much further than we have in her investigations. She has access to
the Yilayil computer system, and she has even been permitted to walk
around the House of Knowledge at night."

"Ti [trill]kee?" Eveleen asked, amazed.

Gordon shook his head again. "No; the Yilayil ignored her. But she

wasn't shooed back by her tutor. She got more lessons."

"How sick is she?" Ross asked.

"That's what I was trying to determine." Gordon looked from one of

them to the other, clearly hesitating.

Eveleen felt her heart hammer a warning tattoo. "Oh, no…"

Gordon's dark brows furrowed. "You're in her confidence?"

Eveleen nodded soberly, then turned to Ross. "I guess, considering the

circumstances, it would be fair to tell you: she was told many years ago
that she carries a recessive gene for sickle-cell anemia. Definitely recessive,
they said—she probably wouldn't get it, but might pass it on, especially if
she ever married someone who carried the same gene."

Ross grimaced.

Eveleen said in a low voice, "It's why she decided she would never

marry. Have kids. Didn't want to risk passing on a tragedy."

Gordon looked up sharply, and Eveleen knew that he hadn't heard

about that. He'd probably read about the recessive gene in Saba's file, but
he hadn't considered what effect it could have on her life decisions.

They're so much alike, Eveleen thought. Each reclusive, solitary, by

choice. Only what is in Gordon's past? She would never ask, of course.

Ross said, "So maybe this has weakened her immune system in some

way? Made her sicker than we are—if she has the same disease? She's been
isolated from us, so it could be something totally different."

"Or it could be something we were all exposed to on arrival," Gordon

said. "We're not going to know—at least, not unless Viktor finds out
something down the timeline." He glanced at his watch.

"He signaled this morning, then?" Ross asked.

"Yes," Gordon said.

Eveleen bit her lip. Viktor had had his long walk to the transport, and

he and Gordon had agreed that he'd spend a maximum of one day and one
night there, taking care to arrive in the morning so that the long walk
back to the meetpoint would not bring anyone out after dark.

Gordon lived with his walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. Misha's orders

had been to signal as soon as Viktor emerged from the transport. If Viktor
had to go back down the timeline for more conferences, at least they'd
know.

So he was back. Gordon awaited only the second signal, meaning he

should get to the meetpoint, wherever that was.

All, of course, before darkness fell. Which would be very soon.

Eveleen opened her mouth to ask how he'd managed to juggle his job so

he could accommodate all this moving around, but was prevented by a
quick knock at the door.

Ross opened it—and all four came in, Irina, Vera, Misha, and Viktor.

For a moment they all stood there, a silent tableau. Eveleen scanned

them, noting the posture of each: Irina graceful and aloof; Misha standing
near her, one fist propped on a hip, an ironic smile on his handsome face;
Vera standing very close to Misha, unnoticed; Viktor leaning against the
wall, looking exhausted, his dark hair lying in sweat-damp strands across
his broad forehead.

So many people crowded into a tiny room made the walls close in, and

Eveleen was aware of the sharp smell of stale sweat.

Almost at the same time, Misha grimaced and said, "It is very hot

today, and in the jungle there are no amenities—"

"Come on," Ross said, gesturing toward the fresher alcove. "It's not

palatial, but it's better than what you've been stuck with."

They disappeared inside. Eveleen heard Ross's voice explaining how

everything worked as, in silence, Vera passed out the evening's ration of
food.

Her eyes were lowered, her generous mouth, almost always smiling, was

uncharacteristically somber. Eveleen guessed that Vera had discovered the
open frequency and had broken the silence rule—and Misha had taken
advantage of it to meet and make his report in person.

Gordon—wisely, Eveleen thought—said nothing. It was apparent from

Irina's posture that she had already spoken her mind to her colleague.

The two Russian men emerged then, and everyone sat in a circle to eat.

"Viktor?" Gordon said, once Viktor had taken the edge off his appetite.

"You did not report to them ill—"

"I did what you ordered: wrote out a letter stating our symptoms,

copied it onto a disk. Sent it forward. Valentin came back to say come
forward to report in person."

"They are sick as well," Misha said, saving Viktor from having to frame

his report in English. "Same symptoms, came on about the same time."

Viktor then spoke. "Zina. She wants to end the mission."

CHAPTER 21

ROSS REACHED FOR the makeshift calendar that he and Eveleen had

begun.

Rapidly he totted up the days, then he looked up at Eveleen and

nodded.

Everyone's count was the same: they were on Day 46, and had fifteen

days until they reached the same number the First Team had stayed
before Katarina disappeared.

Viktor said, "Zina makes order to us. Despite how we know that First

Team did not all vanish that day, still, we must be gone by same day. Our
time." He frowned, said something swiftly in Russian, then he rubbed his
eyes tiredly.

Misha continued for Viktor: "Even if one of us disappears, as did

Katarina, it is still too much. We either solve the problems we face in
fourteen days—without courting extra risks— or we must just leave, return
home, and give our bosses the problem."

Viktor added. "They will withdraw to the ship on Day Sixty, and get

ready for takeoff. We must be there by sunset, Day Sixty." He looked up
and met Irina's eyes.

Ross, watching idly, felt a spurt of surprise when he saw the man's jaw

tighten. He shifted his own gaze to Irina, in time to see a tiny nod, but
then she turned her attention down to her laptop—on which her fingers
had been steadily typing.

Gordon said, "As long as we have Saba, I agree. But I do not leave

without her."

Irina said, "We will not plan to leave without Saba." She spoke in the

same kind of calm, flat voice as Gordon used.

Vera said quickly, 'Why not right now? We can get her out, and leave

now."

Misha struck his hand against the wall, a sharp sound that made

everyone jump.

Ross hadn't realized until then how tense they all were. Tired, sick, yes,

also tense.

"This mission is not failed," he stated, his accent strong. He gave Irina

a cold-eyed stare. "We have time. I will find Svetlana."

Irina just stared back without speaking.

Ross slid a glance at his wife. Eveleen watched the two Russians, a

sober expression in her eyes.

Misha said, "I have translated all her writings. I can retrace her steps,

and if we go back to the day she disappeared—"

Viktor spoke in Russian, gesturing with his hands. Irina also spoke, and

Misha produced a disk from his pocket. He handed it to Irina, who took it
without comment.

Ross saw Gordon following this action. He said nothing.

When Irina had finished putting away the disk, Gordon said in a quiet

voice, "Zina is right. We don't know what this disease is. The fact that we
all have it, at both ends of the time line, makes a strong case for the First
Team having been afflicted with the same thing. And though we haven't
found bodies, we don't know if the First Team died before they
vanished—there are too many anomalies. Until we solve at least one, we
cannot go back and risk the same thing happening to us."

"Then we find out," Misha said. "You get Saba out, I solve this, my own

way."

He turned to the door, hit the control. He went out without speaking

another word, and Viktor, with an expressive shrug, followed.

The door closed, its sound loud in the sudden silence.

"Let's go over the facts," Eveleen said in a voice of compromise. "We

know we're all sick—but our scientists don't know the cause, or the
disease. We know that the First Team were not together, and that they did

in fact disappear on different days, but no one earlier than Katarina, the
archivist."

Vera said, "Misha won't rest until he finds some kind of evidence. He…"

She paused, rolling her eyes.

"Mikhail Petrovich," Irina enunciated in her clear, emotionless voice,

"is a romantic." Her tone equated romantic with fool.

Gordon said diplomatically, "He's determined to make the jump up to

the First Team's time, and perhaps that is a way to find out what
happened." His voice sharpened subtly. "But it might just endanger us
without solving anything at all. Until we collect enough evidence to know
for sure, let's not end up with the same mysterious fate. And so we're back
to our original problem: we must determine, if we can, exactly what
happened to them, and why."

Ross nodded, without speaking. Vera made a noise of agreement. Irina

shrugged.

Gordon went on, "So let's split up, and do whatever we can to put

together the few puzzle pieces we have. See if we can get some sort of
picture, something to act on safely. In the meantime, nothing seems to
have happened to us—" He gestured to the walkie-talkie clipped to Vera's
belt. "So I rescind the silence rule. But let's use good judgment. We still
have to assume that someone who can jam can listen in."

"We speak in English," Vera said. "Russian, someone might know, or

have on record from a hundred years ago. English would still be new."

Gordon nodded.

Vera gave Irina a questioning look. Irina nodded politely at Gordon,

Ross, and Eveleen, then went out, her footfalls noiseless.

Ross thought about that cold, angry glance as he and Eveleen got ready

to sleep. Eveleen seemed troubled; Ross glanced over at her a couple times
as he rolled out their futon. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor,
typing rapidly into her laptop.

When she finished, she closed the laptop and sat back with a sigh.

Ross said, "Any intuition about what's going on in Irina's head?"

Eveleen looked up, slightly startled. "You too, huh?"

Ross shrugged. "I have to admit I'm having trouble figuring these

Russkis. I don't know if it's me, or them, or I'm just not a sensitive kind of
a guy—"

Eveleen laughed. "Meaning you scent personal gossip behind all the

angry looks and so forth. Well, so do I. We do know that Misha has
romanced most of the women in the Russian service. We also know he
pulled strings to be sent on this mission. I suspect that his relationship
with Svetlana wasn't just lighthearted flirtation. How Irina fits into this is
anybody's guess."

Ross grimaced. You didn't get this kind of talk on a mission with all

men—and, he reflected, you probably didn't get it on missions with all
women. Put 'em together, and what do you get?

"Chemistry," he said out loud.

"Hmm?" Eveleen asked, blinking. "Oh! Misha and Irina?

Well, either that or politics. I can't pretend to understand them all.

Irina especially. All I know is—or rather, all I sense is that Irina and Misha
are going to be competing in some way, he to solve the mission, and she to
get us back to Earth before we end up like the rest."

"So you don't think she wants to solve the mystery."

Eveleen paused in the act of brushing out her hair, and shook her head.

"I think Irina has decided it's impossible, and she wants to wrap it up and
move on."

Ross sighed as he dropped down beside her on the futon. His thoughts

ranged from Misha and Irina to Saba, hidden in the House, and from
there to his own situation—the Jecc game. He hadn't mentioned it to
Gordon; it seemed so unimportant beside all the other crises.

But as he lay there, his mind drifting, his thoughts came back to that

word chemistry.

After a little while, the light sensors, detecting no movement, turned

the lights off. Eveleen's breathing had already become deep and even; she
was asleep. Ross closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind.

Dawn the next morning was again clear, they discovered when they left

the Nurayil dorm. Clear, hot, and humid.

"Ugh," Eveleen said, then she cleared her throat and somewhat

breathlessly made a comment about the weather.

Ross obligingly forced his mind to switch from the quicksilver ease of

his native English to the heavy freight train of Yilayil. Weird, how his
brain refused to get used to this language, a problem he'd not had on
previous assignments.

He asked—in Yilayil—"Have you trouble with speech in the Yilayil?" He

chose the word for thought/mind/speech, realizing as he whistled and
hummed the words that this was his problem, the words weren't
one-for-one exchanges.

"I concur," Eveleen trilled. "To think/speak…" She hesitated, then said

quickly in English, "Every word is a paragraph." She looked guiltily at
Ross, then went back to Yilayil. "Practice perhaps would take a year."

Ross didn't answer. He knew they were both thinking that they didn't

have a year.

They reached their workplace then, and the cool, shadowy building was

a distinct relief after the early morning heat.

As Ross took up his station, he considered their performance so far.

Back on Earth—what had seemed a thousand years ago—everyone had
blithely assumed that he and Eveleen would be able to attain driver status
without any problem, thus being able to sneak rail-skimmers out and
move the teammates around as needed. At least so long as their
destinations matched with the hidden rail system. They'd assumed that
Misha and Viktor would of course find the bodies of the First Team, all
located in the same place, having been buried on the same day. They'd
assumed—

His attention splintered when he felt a dry, scaly hand at his side.

The Jecc!

The game was on.

He'd almost forgotten them. Quick as light he imprisoned the small

fingers working at the communicator attached to his belt. The Jecc went
very still, its pupils contracting as it stared up at him.

Ross spoke without thinking, repeating the same phrase used by the

Jecc that caught him stealing, all those days ago: "My progeny will be
swift."

The Jecc's gaze seemed to intensify, then fast as lightning it scuttled

away.

Ross turned to his work, picking up where he'd left off in a complicated

assembly the day before. The Jecc encounter was momentarily forgotten.

It didn't stay forgotten long. Within a very short time he became aware

of a change in the behaviors of the Jecc. He'd become the center of their
focus—not just the stealing, but they seemed to move about him in busy
circles, humming a kind of shorthand Yilayil.

The only time they faded away was at midday break, when Ross went to

find Eveleen. As soon as he addressed her, his Jecc followers vanished like
a tide receding.

"Something weird's going on," he murmured in an undertone.

"Danger?" She used the Yilayil word.

He replied in the same tongue. "No, I believe not. A change, a

transition…" Again he felt that the words carried too many meanings, and
choosing them was like carrying a mental backpack up a hill, whereas
English was like light tiles, easily chosen, enabling him to sprint tirelessly.
Frustrating.

He changed the subject to something innocuous as they forced down

something to eat. The midday sun was blisteringly hot, and the air outside
the transport area was almost overpowering with heavy scents.

When he was done he peered against the sunny glare off walls and

roofs, and made out the dark green line of the jungle in the near distance.
Weird. It felt as if it encroached menacingly.

"No appetite either?" Eveleen asked—in Yilayil.

He shook his head.

She sighed. "I noticed we are all thinner."

Ross thought back to the night before, and nodded. He hadn't been

aware of it, but when he considered the Russians and Gordon—Eveleen
was right. Of course, that was to be expected, since they were all sick.

But he didn't feel thinner. He felt, if anything, too heavy.

That had to be the heat—and the illness.

He dismissed the thought, and drank some water.

Then it was time to return to work.

As soon as he was alone, the Jecc returned, circling around closer than

ever. So it went for the rest of the shift. No one stole anything, but the Jecc
stayed close, as if watching him, though they did not stop their work
either.

It was when he shut down his workstation that the same Jecc came

forward who had addressed him so aggressively on the first day in this
department.

"I, Bock of Harbeast Teeth Islands, take Ross of Fire Mountain Enclave

to nest for Day of Lamentation."

Ross stared down at the little being. A threat? Or an invitation?

He looked about for Eveleen, then realized that to do so meant that the

Jecc would once again disappear.

He hesitated, knowing he should report in. But he also knew what

Gordon would say: "Sit tight. Zina's orders."

But they didn't know about the Jecc. And Ross had a hunch

that—somehow—this was going to fit into the overall puzzle.

He turned his head, watching Eveleen slowly shutting down her own

workstation.

Better she went safely back to their room. If he was doing something

stupid, at least he was the only one endangered.

"Yes," he said to Bock. "I come."

CHAPTER 22

"IT'S BEEN TWO hours," Eveleen said, trying hard not to snarl into the

communicator.

It wasn't Gordon's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault—except Ross's.

Dammit!

"He's signaled the safety code?" Gordon asked.

"Yes," Eveleen said. "Twice. I know he's alive, but I don't know where."

"Exactly what happened?" Gordon asked.

"Nothing. That is, at the end of the workday, I saw him shutting down

his work area. He had about six Jecc with him. All of them were quiet,
which was unusual for Jecc."

"I don't know any Jecc," Gordon said.

"You're lucky," Eveleen commented, then she sighed. At least their

room was cool, but to be in it alone—she shut her eyes against its
unwelcoming alienness. "Anyway, I was glad to shut my work down
because the heat made my head ache worse than ever. But when I finished
and started over to find him, I realized he was gone. At first I thought I
might have missed him, and so I walked all over the Transport. Nothing.
So I came back here along our usual route. Nothing. So I took out my com.
We'd traded off wearing ours, since we work together and could share
news. Save energy. He had his on today. I tried to raise him—no answer."

"But you said you got the code for safety," Gordon cut in.

"That was after I raced back to the Transport." Eveleen bit back a

comment about the enjoyment of running in the fierce heat. Gordon knew
how hot it was. Everyone knew. "He wasn't there, so I tried to raise him by
voice, and when that didn't work, I tried the pulse. I got an answer back
then—the safety code."

"Could someone have taken it from him?"

"That was my first thought," Eveleen said, reaching for a cup of water.

She drank thirstily, then said, "Pardon."

Gordon laughed a little. "I've been drinking gallons myself. Saba as

well."

"You've been talking to Saba?" Eveleen asked, diverted for a moment.

"Long conversations," Gordon said, his tone curious. "Back to Ross. You

don't think someone took his com?"

"Oh. No. Not unless they also can read minds. You see, back on the

ship, we'd also worked out a couple of personal codes. Just in case. Well,
he pulsed one of those, too. And an hour ago, when he sent the next safety
code, he sent another one—this one meaning 'Can't talk now but I'm okay.'
"

She didn't mention that the first one he'd sent was the "I love you"

code—not that Gordon probably couldn't guess.

Too bad we didn't work one out for "I love you, but what you did is so

stupid I'm going to throttle you!" Eveleen thought grimly.

"This sounds rather like the Ross I've always known," Gordon said next,

and Eveleen—though nothing could abate her exasperation—was a little
comforted. "Here's my guess. He's following a hunch, something so
harebrained he knew we'd all be against it. But his instincts have always
been good, so far."

So far. Eveleen sighed. "Right."

"Keep in contact if anything changes," Gordon said.

Eveleen wanted to talk more—for reassurance if for nothing else—but

she forced herself to sign off. She knew Gordon couldn't really help. He

knew even less than she did about the situation, and it wasn't as if he
didn't have plenty to worry about on his own.

He knew less than she did about—

She jumped up, ignoring the pang in her temples. Idiot!

Once again she tabbed her com, but this time—for the first time—she

punched in the code for Misha.

His answer came almost immediately. "Nikulin here."

Nikulin? Oh, yes, Misha's last name. Eveleen said, "Misha, have you

come across any Jecc on your investigations?"

"Jecc? Yes. They have a, a lair, you must say in English, in a series of

caves directly south, near the peninsula."

Eveleen let out her breath in a whoosh. "Any chance you could take me

there?"

Misha gave a soft laugh. "Yes, I can. Is there a reason?"

Swiftly Eveleen outlined the situation.

Misha said nothing until she'd reached the end, only, "I will come to

you." And the com went dead.

She figured Misha had to be several hours' walk away, and she

repressed a wince of guilt at making him walk in the heat. This was too
important.

The main thing was to get rest. Until he arrived, she might as well try

to catch some sleep.

So she unrolled the futon, trying not to think about lying on it alone,

laid out her equipment, and composed herself for sleep. Yet it seemed
she'd only just closed her eyes when a rapid tap came at the door.

She opened it to find Misha standing there, alone. She grabbed her

canteen and her com, and walked out.

He smiled down at her, his eyes impossible to read.

"Is there a problem?" he asked.

His tone suggested a problem between Ross and herself. She fought

annoyance, realizing that it was a legitimate question—that the success of
the mission was at stake, and so she answered in an even voice, "No.
Opposite, really—" And as she spoke, she had it. "He's being chivalrous,
I'm afraid. And…" The truth almost made her dizzy. "It's stupid, but I
think I would have done the same thing."

She had a sudden, vivid mental picture of Ross stumping alongside

Misha, cursing at each step as they chased after her, and she laughed out
loud, then caught herself up short, choking the laughs back.

Misha gave her a quizzical glance.

Forestalling any more personal questions, she asked, "How long is the

walk? All night?"

Misha shook his head. "You will see."

They reached the bottom of the ramp, then, and Eveleen realized it was

quite dark outside. This was against the rules— only the Yilayil could be
out. Yet Misha had gotten in successfully.

Her heart pounded as she followed him around the side of the building.

They walked in a direction she'd never explored. Why not? she asked
herself. And the answer came immediately, because she and Ross had
spent every waking moment with each other, keeping each other safe.
Alone, they probably both would have been a lot more adventurous.

And neither of them had ever spoken a word about this.

She grimaced at the ground as she walked. Well, they were going to

make up for lost time, she promised.

But first—a big first—she and Misha had to find Ross, and get him

back, all without anyone being caught abroad at night.

Misha raised a hand, and Eveleen stopped. He leaned out, looking in all

directions, then he unfolded a small lorgnettelike device and peered
through it: an infrared scanner. He did a slow circle, then folded it back
up.

"No one," he murmured. "We are at the border of the city. Few come

this way."

In silence she followed him at a jogging pace down a curving

pathway—a skimmer rail, she realized. They ran past several small,
circular buildings, almost none of which had windows. In the distance
loomed the black line of the jungle.

Before they reached it, though, Misha made an abrupt diagonal.

Eveleen followed, taking care to match the long strides of the Russian
agent. He led the way unerringly into what seemed at first to be an
overgrown garden, lit with a ghostly glow from the tower of the House of
Knowledge.

They passed between two vine-covered walls, then Misha undipped a

flashlight from his belt. A quick look behind, a scan on the infrared, and
he motioned Eveleen to follow.

Misha clicked the flash on, revealing a moss-covered ramp leading

down in a sharp spiral.

"Careful. One can easily slip," Misha murmured.

Eveleen walked carefully, picking her way over cracked stone and

jumbles of small plants that had wedged themselves in the cracks.

They walked down rapidly, passing from the hot, still air into a breezy

passageway that smelled faintly like the Transport Eveleen worked at every
day. At once she felt alarm, for the rail-skimmers were usually
crowded—and at night, of course, they would belong exclusively to the
Yilayil.

But Misha seemed to read her thoughts, for he said, "Be easy. This has

been closed for centuries."

Attesting to the truth of what he said, the flashlight played over mossy

walls and fungus-covered surfaces as she became aware of the musical
drip of water seeping down from somewhere overhead.

Down, down they walked, into a dim-lit tunnel. Drier air whooshed

softly in their faces, smelling faintly of machinery. An air circulation
system?

Misha spoke now in a normal voice: "We found this by accident, when

trying to escape one of the recent storms. Apparently one transport was
built directly atop the older one."

He pointed down the narrow tunnel, and they walked a short distance

along a meter-wide curb.

"This is the very south end of the old spaceport, which must have been

abandoned several centuries before the First Team's time. We think this
predates the Yilayil. Runs on different principles than those buckets you
and Ross repair every day."

"Why didn't they just use this? Why build something new?" Eveleen

asked.

Misha shrugged, and then motioned for her to stop, then he reached

high over his head and passed his hand in front of something; Eveleen
caught a faint flicker, as of lights nearly off the human-perceptible
spectrum, and within seconds a hissing noise heralded the arrival of a
long, peculiar-looking vehicle, not at all like the rail-skimmers. This looked
more like the low, fast cars found in modern mines, only narrow, and it
did not run on wheels.

They climbed in, Eveleen behind Misha. The vehicle was damp to the

touch, but not full of water. Eveleen sat down carefully.

"Lie back," Misha warned. "Hands and feet together."

Eveleen obeyed. Misha did something. Without warning the car moved

forward, at first slowly, then effortlessly gathering speed. The tightening in
her stomach gave her the sense of diving down deep underground at a
rapid clip; otherwise the tunnel indicated nothing, neither depth nor
direction.

Once or twice it swerved, or dove farther, then Misha did something up

front. Intersections arrived—brief flashes of light and slight impacts on
her ears—then vanished again. At last the craft drove upward again,
pressing her back against a hard, ridged seat, then it slowed smoothly to a
stop.

"We are at the south end of the island," Misha said as they climbed out.

"Have you been all over, then?" Eveleen asked.

Misha nodded, smoothing back ruffled blond hair from his brow.

"There's nothing to be found—nothing for us. But these early engineers
were a damned sight better than the weasel folk. No sign of what
happened to them, of course."

Eveleen bit back a comment, thinking: If I'd been alone, I would have

spent all my free time looking for just this kind of thing. Her head even
seemed to ache less. Was it impending action? Or maybe just the clean,
filtered air of the deep transport system?

Whatever it was, they were out of it soon, for Misha motioned her into

a kind of escalator, which whizzled them to another overgrown tunnel.
Now the familiar flowery, warm, humid air clogged her sinuses.

They stepped out into starlit darkness.

"Do the Jecc use these transports, then?" Eveleen asked.

"Yes. We found out purely by accident. They all crowd in at dawn and

dusk, and sometimes in between, but never at night. We nearly were
discovered by them one morning when we were asleep at the other end."

"Huh." So the Jecc, thieves of everything small and inconsequential,

had a secret transport? Eveleen wondered how many other secrets were
held by the various races of this world. She shook her head. "We need a
year here, not days."

"This I know," Misha said, sounding amused.

Neither spoke for the remainder of the walk, which was up a steep trail.

Eveleen was glad that there was no rain— though halfway up, she would
have welcomed the moisture, just to cool her off. She was very glad not to
be making this journey in the middle of the day.

Once she started to ask a question, but Misha reached, putting a hand

to her lips.

She shrugged him off, and nodded. His face, scarcely discernible in the

starlight, was unreadable, but she sensed his amusement at her reaction.

Presently he stopped, and motioned for her to drop to her knees. He did

also, and they crawled slowly along a narrow cliff, then stopped. Misha
pointed over a rocky edge, and she lay flat and stretched slowly out,
looking down.

She found herself staring directly down a wide vent. The familiar

burned-toast smell of the Jecc was very pronounced, along with a
not-unpleasant, slightly astringent scent rather like the herb rosemary.

She inched farther out, looking down into the yellowish light, and

caught sight of muted colors. Blinking the sweat out of her eyes, she
scrunched forward on her elbows until she had a full view down the vent
shaft, into a chamber whose walls were covered with some kind of mural.
She saw stars, plants, cavorting figures that, at the steep angle at which
she was forced to view, were hard to make out. They seemed to be Jecc,
only they didn't look quite right. She wriggled around, trying different
angles, but she couldn't really see well; the angle was still too sharp.

The swift rise and fall of voices came then, faint, carried on the currents

of soft air.

In silence she waited, listening to the voices, wondering what to do

next, when she heard another voice, a lone voice, human.

It belonged to Ross.

Eveleen listened to the familiar timbre of his voice. He was

whistle/humming something in Yilayil, but the distance, the soft
whooshing of the air passing up the vent, made words difficult to discern.

One thing, though, for certain: his voice made it clear that he was not

in any danger.

She pressed her cheek against a rock, trying to assess the maelstrom of

emotions crashing through her mind.

He was safe.

But he hadn't told her.

And they hadn't done any exploring…

Once he returned unharmed she knew she had a right to get really

angry with him. It was inexcusable, to just take off without warning.
Dangerous, rock-headed, and inexcusable. Yet she knew she would
probably have done the same thing, and for the same reason: she couldn't
bear the thought of him going willingly into danger.

They'd guarded each other, without speaking of it, keeping one another

from exploring, from taking risks. Eveleen thought of that secret transport
so close to the Nurayil dorm. She and Ross should have found it, weeks
ago. But they'd guarded each other from doing anything daring—anything
they probably would have done were they single.

Single. Now, suddenly, she understood Milliard's real concern about

newlyweds on a mission together.

She sighed, listening to Ross's voice among the high chatters of the

Jecc. Oh, Ross! She knew she could make a scene. She was his wife, his
helpmeet. She had a right to communication! Then she thought of Saba,
who had chosen, with intellectual forbearance, never to have a mate. To
close herself off from the possibility of this kind of sharing, because of the
possibility of genetic-borne tragedy. Oh, sure, there were ways to make
certain one didn't have children—and likewise there were plenty of
successful relationships that did not include offspring. Eveleen considered
for the first time the possibility that Saba's policy was actually the result
of a specific relationship. In other words, she had found the right person,
but her circumstances and that person's own wishes could not be made to
compromise.

That was real tragedy. Next to it, fussing about "rights" seemed just

petty.

She looked over at Misha, who watched her in silence.

"Thanks," she said softly. "Let's go back."

Neither spoke as they made the return journey.

CHAPTER 23

"ZINA HAS SET a limit." Gordon's voice sounded quiet and reassuring.

"We lift ship before Blossom Day. I'm working on plans for repatriation."

Saba closed her eyes, listening to the calm voice.

"Blossom Day" was their old code for the day of disappearance. If she

was reading his oblique words right, the First Team had not all
disappeared on the same day, only Katarina. But apparently Zina wanted
them to move forward in time well before that day, and it had something
to do with the illness they all shared.

"I am learning," she said. "I learn slowly, and there is much to be

learned. I think… I know there is something important here."

"Continue to learn," Gordon replied. Then he paused, and she heard

him drinking water. They were evidently all thirsty, and their appetites
had diminished.

Then he went on to talk about his college days, and how much he'd

enjoyed discovering archaeology. They buried their real communication in
long innocuous talks, but Saba found that she enjoyed these talks just the
same.

At first he'd talked generalities, but gradually, as they found similar

areas of interest, he'd become more personal.

"It was the discovery of paradigm that hooked me in," he said. "Oh, I'd

heard about worldview and 'Weltanschauung' and so forth all during high
school, but it was that visceral understanding that other cultures saw the
universe through utterly different metaphors that fascinated me."

"Yes," Saba said. "I was lucky—I saw it early, because my parents came

from such vastly different backgrounds." She described riding across the
plains of Ethiopia with her father, a doctor, to visit the different peoples.
And then there came a new culture to learn, when she moved to the
capital city to begin her advanced education. "But that is what brought
me to my studies, the expression of paradigm through music."

"Music," Gordon mused. "It was on the periphery of my attention when

I was growing up."

"It was a part of life for me," Saba said. "Music stitched together the…"

Inadvertently a Yilayil word came to mind, along with image—color—but
she reverted to English. "The fabrics of meaning." As she said it, she
frowned. "Fabric"— so inadequate! And so she whistle/hummed her idea,

using the outside-time tense she'd been struggling to comprehend, and it
came closer to expressing the image.

Gordon drew in a deep breath—she could hear it. "I'm not sure I

understand," he said finally. "I perceive each word separately, but the
verb—"

"It's part of my lessons," Saba said, thinking that—even if they were

overheard, which they must assume to be the case—this conversation
could not possibly endanger anyone.

Then she remembered the time, and sat up suddenly, dizzily, staring at

her watch. "Ah, I am late," she said. "But I enjoyed our discussion."

"Until later, then," Gordon responded, and clicked off.

Saba rose slowly, testing her strength, her sense of gravity. At Gordon's

insistence, she was now using full doses of medication. She worked to time
the hours of their strongest effect with her lessons, so she could be as
clearheaded as possible when she was trying to learn the alien language in
all its nuances.

SHE PULLED ON her robe, and stepped outside her room. Pausing, she

looked at the blank wall adjacent. Why did they have her alone on a
corridor? The wall, a dead end, intrigued her subconscious mind. In her
dreams, Katarina often came through it, like a ghost.

Sometimes Katarina sang, old chants out of Saba's childhood that the

Russian probably never had even heard: the polyphonic edho of the Dorze;
Eritrean songs, echoing two thousand years of history from the long-ago
kingdom of Axum; even the songs of the mysterious Afar, who shun all
foreigners.

It was the polyphonic edho that Saba most often heard, wreathing

through the never-ceasing music of the Yilayil. So different to the ears, but
the brain insisted on finding connecting points.

She sighed, and walked down to the teaching chamber, where she

found Zhot—no longer green—pacing back and forth.

As always, he began without preamble.

"All peoples have part of brain where sensory organs connect, where the

senses happen first," Zhot said.

Saba nodded, puzzled at the new direction the lesson was taking. So

they would not work on the computer, then?

"We will talk about vision," Zhot continued—again, as if reading her

mind. It was eerie, how often their thoughts paralleled—even when she
was having the most difficulty comprehending him. "What do your people
call the brain part where vision happens?"

That, at least, she could answer, for she had studied neurology for a

time in her efforts to plumb the mysteries of music's universal effect on
humans. "The visual cortex."

"And if this is destroyed, no vision, yes?"

She nodded again.

"Do you understand ***?" Zhot whistle-trilled a complex phrase.

Sight denied but body affirms perception? She shook her head,

confused. Her head panged, colors and even tastes flitting through her
consciousness. She dismissed them as irrelevant, and grasped at the words
that came with them.

"Blindsight!" she exclaimed. "They deny sight, indeed cannot see, but

can sometimes grasp objects, tell their shapes."

"Yes! This is true for all sentients with this brain damage. And they do

not trust what they perceive, do not believe they perceive, call it guessing,"
Zhot continued, more excited than she had ever seen him, "for they have
no sensations to anchor perception."

Her momentary satisfaction at her understanding him ebbed as she

realized she had no idea why they were discussing blindsight. A wave of
weakness washed over her, and she swayed in her chair, suddenly dizzy.

"Only a little more," Zhot said, in the first concessions to her condition

she had ever known from him.

"I apologize," Saba said. "I discover that I am hungry." She thought

longingly of the bluish cheese pudding that was often served, and her
stomach growled. She suspected, from its effect on her metabolism, that it
was pure protein.

"We talk, then eat," Zhot said. "Your people have legends of those

among you who see the future, yes?" he continued.

"Yes. It is very rare, and not to be depended on."

"No more than blindsight," said Zhot, his tail swishing beneath his

robes. The sight made more colors flit across Saba's vision, and dizziness
dissolved the edges of her vision. She closed her eyes, and concentrated on
his words. "For we who live in time have no sensory organ for time, and so
no sensations to anchor the perception of time. Do you understand?"

"I—I…" She paused, a sudden onslaught of weariness—

dizziness—washing through her mind. She fought vertigo, opened her eyes.
They stung. The fever was back—already. "Think, listen, taste," Zhot said.
"Now we eat." Taste, eat. Everything seemed connected by some inner
meaning. Saba tried to penetrate it, but the malaise made it impossible,
and she gratefully followed Zhot to the refectory to join the other beings
for the morning meal.

DAWN WAS GRAYING the gathering clouds when Ross slipped out of

the Jecc transport and jogged back to the Nurayil dorm. Now that the
adventure was over, his emotions were mixed: excitement at action, at
discovery, laced with guilt. He knew he ought to have communicated.
Eveleen would be angry. As she had a right to be.

Still, this rational acceptance of his culpability didn't make the

prospect of facing the music any easier.

When he reached the dorm building, some of the beings they shared it

with were already descending to go off to whatever it was they did during
the daylight hours. He moved quickly between them, running up the
ramp. He was not even tempted to go directly to work. Better to confront
her now, and get it over with.

He reached their cell, and opened the door.

He wasn't sure what he expected to find except an angry wife. What he

saw was Eveleen and Gordon sitting cross-legged on the floor, each
working at his or her laptop, food beside them. He saw the bluish stuff
that tasted kind of like cheesecake, and swallowed a couple times. He was
suddenly ravenous.

But he turned his attention from the food to his wife's assessing brown

eyes. He met that gaze—and he saw her grin.

"Well," she said, "since I didn't get to share your adventure, how about

a detailed report?"

"Of course," he said. "Ah, you're not mad? Not that I'd blame you."

Gordon said nothing, only smiled slightly.

Eveleen said, "Oh, I wasn't mad once I'd made sure you were all right."

"What?" Ross demanded.

Eveleen's smile sharpened a little at the corners. "Misha showed me the

way to the Jecc caves. I got a good peek, but not much more."

Ross drew in a slow breath. "You—"

"Went out to make sure you were okay," Eveleen said slowly. "Just as

you would have done, had I been the one to skip out. We'll have to talk
about that, but later. We all have to get to work. Sit down, have some
breakfast. I take it the Jecc didn't feed you?"

"Oh, they tried, but I just pretended. The stuff they like would make a

squirrel happy, but it was too close to nuts and gravel for my taste. Or
what looked like gravel."

Ashe sat back, his brows lifted slightly. "You thought there was

something important to pursue—enough so that you avoided our orders.
I'm here to follow up on whatever it was you discovered."

Ross sat down, knowing that Gordon's mild manner was deceptive. It

was as much of a reprimand as Gordon was going to make—but it was
enough.

"I'm not sure," Ross said, "but I think there is something."

"Go on," Eveleen said. "I'll type it up as you talk."

"I didn't put it all together until I got to the Jecc city. Because that's

what it is, a little city. They are pretty handy with their fingers for
building, and not just thieving. Hot and cold running water—and they like
baths just as much as humans. Forget this ecologically sound but
unsatisfying glue-field thing." Ross waved behind him.

Gordon gave a faint grin, but his attitude was still one of waiting.

"Anyway, when I got there, I saw Jecc with kids in their pouches. They

don't come into the Nurayil town when they are gestating their young. I
think they are biologically a lot like marsupials—the young are born
helpless, and finish gestating in the pouches. But the Jecc are asexual. All
that thieving comes down to the exchange of genetic material."

"That's why our tools feel like they've been dusted with pollen?" Eveleen

asked.

"Exactly. And by playing what I thought was a game, I somehow made

myself one of the gang. See, it works like this, far as I can figure: it's an
honor to be stolen from, because it means someone else wants your
genetic material for their offspring. But it's not just stealing, because
you're expected to get the thing right back again. And you're not supposed
to get caught, but if you do, you make some comment about
progeny—though in the past, I think, they used to fight. But that fighting
turned to ritualistic dueling by the time they got civilized—developed
writing and reached for the stars. They are insatiably curious. I think they
feel rejected by the rest of the beings on this world because no one
participates in their thieving games."

"But they can't expect to be exchanging genetic material with other

races, can they?" Gordon asked.

"No. I don't think it's that all the time with them, either. They also do it

with new encounters, so I believe it's a kind of acceptance custom as well.
A social exchange. Only no one outside of the Jecc seems to know it—or
care."

"Is that why they don't try to become harmonized?" Eveleen asked.

"It might be a part, but here's where it gets weird. They are wary of

ti[trill]kee because every generation or so, the ones here on this island
seem to disappear."

Gordon let out a long whistle—not a Yilayil whistle, but a low, American

expression of "Uh oh!"

"Oh, but that's not all of it. They seem to want to fit in, but they want to

know what happened to their ancestors. For beings who don't have
families the way we have them, they are very involved with their ancestors.
They showed me those caves you saw. Each one makes a mosaic about its
life, and accomplishments, naming its progeny. They used to have more,
but now they only have one, maybe two, if their population drops in
number."

"The mosaics looked interesting."

"Not just that," Ross said, feeling for words. "Sad, kind of. Poignant.

Their ancestors didn't just stop at depicting themselves. They have special
rooms that show pictures from their homeworld, and others showing their
journey through space. Jecc have spread over several worlds, and they
used to keep in contact—they have things not unlike those picture cubes
we found on the globe ship. Remember, Gordon? That showed pictures of
home?"

"Yes," Ashe said. "Go on."

"Well, the Jecc have these ancient message cubes, and they revere

them. Play them often—I don't know what kind of energy they run off.
Solar? Anyhow, here's the kicker. The Jecc in the messages are different."

"Different? How?" Gordon asked.

"Taller. Bigger. But the real change is the tentacles. The Jecc of the past

didn't have them. And all of a sudden—if the mosaics are correct—a
generation or so after they arrived here, all the offspring were born with
them."

"Tentacles," Eveleen said, looking up from her typing. "The Yilayil don't

have them—they have four arms—but a lot of the other beings here all
have those tentacles."

"Those savage human types did as well, down in our time," Ross said.

"Anyway, the tentacles are new, and the Jecc mourn the fact that even if
they had a spaceship, because of them they could never go home again.
That's what yesterday was, their Day of Lamentation. They seem to have
these about once a month."

"Mutation," Gordon said slowly, getting to his feet. "No, more than

mutation. Genetic alteration. Tentacles are too much of a change to be a
mutation, and on many races, at that. But alteration by whom, and to
what purpose?" He frowned as he packed up his laptop. "This requires
thought." He shook his head. "But later. For now, we'd better not make
any overt changes in our routines, because we still don't know who is
watching or listening. I'm off to work."

He left, and Eveleen slowly and thoughtfully shut down her computer.

Ross watched, trying to figure out what to say.

But Eveleen forestalled him. She got to her feet and put her hands on

his shoulders. She smiled up into his face.

"How long," she asked, "do you think it would have taken for us to get

thoroughly sick of each other?"

"What?" Ross gazed at her in astonishment.

Her eyes were narrowed in amusement—and understanding. "If we

hadn't gotten whatever this illness is. How long would we have guarded
one another against taking risks— meanwhile getting more and more
frustrated?"

"I—" Ross let his breath out in a whoosh. "I don't know."

Eveleen turned away, no longer smiling. "We should have found that old

transport system, Ross. You and I—weeks ago. Misha and Viktor stumbled
on it only because they were looking for some kind of shelter from one of
those rainstorms. That station is right near us. We should have been out,
exploring, ages ago. We two are action agents, not Vera and Irina. They
are communicators, analysts. But they've been finding out data, much
more than we have."

Ross sighed. "I know. It's just—"

"You don't have to say it, because I felt exactly the same. You're used to

taking action—taking risks. And when you were risking only yourself, it
was perfectly all right. I know because I felt the same way. But when it
came to considering your safety, I couldn't stand the thought that
something might happen to you, and I meant to stay with you every
minute. Keep you safe. Keep you out of harm's way."

Ross laughed a little raggedly. "Hell, Eveleen."

"And we didn't even talk. Just heroically did our duty as

spouses—guarding each other from doing our duty as agents." She gave
him a troubled look. "If we can't work this out, we shouldn't be partners. If
we were on our own again, we'd have that old freedom of action. And we're
both action people— you have to admit it. That's what brought us together
in the first place."

Ross said, "Don't think that."

"But we have to," Eveleen said. "If we can't handle the emotional

consequences of our jobs, then we'd be better off working separately. We
have to consider it—but later. Right now, we'd better get to work. Gordon
said we don't want to alter our routines any."

Ross nodded, forcing himself to grab his share of the breakfast. He

would munch it on the way, though he really didn't want to eat. Didn't
want to work. Truth was, he felt heartsick. Anger would have been better
than that logical calmness.

The worst of it was, he knew she was right.

Outside, the air was slightly cooler, a strong breeze smelling of rain

bringing some relief. Eveleen walked beside him, her profile serene, as she
made light comments in Yilayil.

Ross didn't talk. He thought about his night with the Jecc—and when

they got to work, and the Jecc recommenced their little game, he thought
about Eveleen.

On the way back from work, he said, "You're right. And I promise. No

more hiding. Half and half, share fair and square, as we used to say on the
streets when I was a kid."

"Share fair and square," Eveleen repeated, her eyes steady and bright

with a sheen of unshed tears. "That, my dear, is real trust."

Ross didn't respond. As always, his deepest emotions were impossible

to express. He looked forward to their being alone at last, so that he could
at least try.

But when they reached the Nurayil dorm, they found Misha waiting

outside their cell, pacing like a caged cat.

A small group of Moova trundled past, but he paid them no heed. As

soon as he saw them he said abruptly, "Open up."

In mute surprise, Eveleen palmed the door open.

As soon as they were inside, Misha said, "The flyers. They got Viktor."

Ross looked to Eveleen. She looked back, question in her eyes.

"What are we waiting for?" Ross said. "Let's go get him back."

CHAPTER 24

SABA SPENT THE day drifing in and out of consciousness.

Gordon called her once, and then again. His worry penetrated the

strange dreaming wakefulness that she couldn't seem to escape on her
own. Patiently, slowly, he bade her describe—in detail—her room, her
hands, courses she'd taken in university. Anything to anchor her to reality.

But as soon as they quit conversing, she lay down again, exhausted, and

the strange dreams seized her—always punctuated by Yilayil voices
singing never-ending chants. Twice she rose to shut down the Yilayil
computer, so that the sound would cease and she could sleep, but both
times she found it dark. Was the sound coming from hidden speakers?
Or— somehow—was she dreaming it, too? Except how could she dream
language she only partially understood?

Her mind kept insisting on listening, and trying to parse the

complicated levels of verb and modifier until she'd rise again, cram more
anti-inflammatory meds into her dry mouth, and wash it down with long
gulps of water.

Once she awoke suddenly, and Zhot seemed to be in her room. He

demanded definitions for time and space and insisted that she learn the
terms for those who stood outside temporal reality…

She slept again, and when she woke a second time—now drenched in

sweat—she wasn't sure if she'd dreamed the conversation or not.

As soon as she sat up, the sensors flicked the lights on. The lights

seemed dim; she felt a sudden longing for the bright clarity of sunlight.

She looked up, about to reach for her medication—and there was Zhot,

standing in the shadows of the corner.

"Are your senses one, or many?" Zhot's voice blurred in a scintillation of

green-tasting rainbows—Saba knew the thought senseless, but it was the
only description that fit.

"Many," she said slowly. Her lips felt dry and cracked. She reached for

water, drank. When she looked up, Zhot was still there.

"Different modes of sensation, yes?" he insisted. Now she heard the

wisp-wisp of his slippered feet on her floor, the quiet hiss of his robe as he
walked back and forth in front of her door.

Her muzzy mind jumped to the musical modes, and she worried a

moment at the problem of whether the taste of water was Dorian or
Myxolydian.

When she looked up again, her vision had gone blurry; in Zhot's place

she saw Katarina.

Katarina did not wait for an answer, or maybe it was an hour later.

Saba didn't know.

"But you can imagine colors for tastes, sounds for shapes, different

modes?" she continued. "Symbolically associate them?" Katarina spoke in
Russian, or was it still Yilayil?

Katarina was a warm slurpy column of melted licorice emitting blue

bubbles that enveloped her head, each conveying a quantum of meaning.

Now Saba tried to assign the proper color to the modes, until she

suddenly, but only for a flashing moment, realized that she was below the
words, below the world of symbols, in a seamless unity of sensation. Then
everything wrenched back into focus, intensifying her headache, and
Katarina was gone.

Synesthesis, Saba realized.

Unable to think beyond that, Saba lay down, and slept.

Urgency bled through her dreams: there was something she had to

understand, to learn, to know. Now! Now!

She gasped, woke up, fumbling with trembling fingers for her water.

As she drank, she realized that the sound that had wakened her was

that of movement outside her door—not footsteps, but voices. Yilayil
voices, chanting.

She levered herself painfully off the bed, all her joints aching. The room

spun about her for a moment, then steadied. After some experimentation
she found that she could walk, albeit slowly, as long as she did not move
her head quickly. It took all her strength for her to pull on her robe, but
she welcomed its warmth.

She opened the door, in time to see two weasel faces look directly into

her eyes before passing onward. They did not pause in the eerie
whistle-punctuated chant, but passed slowly onward, their robes swaying
in time to their steps.

Saba turned her head—impossible that they would walk in that

direction. There was nothing next to her room but a wall.

An unfamiliar glow lit the corridor. The adjacent wall was gone! In its

place was an archway, its ceiling lit from beneath. Was it a stairway?

She waited, but no one appeared, and she became aware of a weird

sound, almost like a heartbeat, but with strange musical overtones and
harmonics. It seemed to come up through the floor, through her feet, but
then she realized that some of the sound, the musical part, was more
audible from the open door.

"Is this real?" she whispered, and then she reached for her com—her

link to sanity. She clicked it on, and said wearily, "Is this real?"

She held it out, for a few seconds, but her arm could not bear the

weight, and so she clipped it to her belt—and then forgot it as she
concentrated on the difficult actions involved in standing on her feet.

She groped her way through the door, and stood in dismay. The stairs

she had expected to find were apparently endless. She blinked feverish
eyes. The perspective was odd, and her eyes wouldn't quite focus on the
walls.

Only a few steps before her were in focus. The music crescendoed,

echoing in cacophony—then it resolved, each voice, each instrument
harmonious, the whole transcending melody into a form of mind-numbing
beauty.

The music was more complex than any she had ever heard. It beckoned

her downward.

Is this my fever? she thought. Am I really here? Only her trembling legs

and pounding head and heart tied her to reality—but those too could be
part of her dream.

Again the sense of urgency gripped her. She stumbled on.

Time was fragmented now; she had a vague sense that sunset had

passed, that it was no longer Yilayil time. She remembered the two Yilayil
faces, so briefly seen.

Sight blurred, and she knew she had to be hallucinating, for now she

saw ghosts: the First Team, all lined up along the stairs in a row. And then
Gordon. He reached a hand toward her, but she passed through his
fingers. When she paused, swaying, on the stairs, she looked back—and he
was watching her, his blue eyes mute with appeal, his sunbleached hair
disarrayed as if he had been running. He's sick too, she thought, and she
passed downward.

Finally she reached the bottom, and found herself in a huge cavern,

glittering with the light of torches, bioluminescent spheres, electric lights,
and other sources of illumination she did not recognize.

All the races of the planet were represented there, distributed about the

vast space in a complex pattern whose geometry seemed to hold
importance, but again the meaning escaped her.

The cavern was also full of stalactites and stalagmites, of fragile webs of

rock, arrays of stone cylinders, and other forms, some natural, some
obviously shaped, and some whose provenance she could not discern.

The beings danced among them, striking them with various

instruments adapted to their sizes and physical nature. Big creatures held
huge hammerlike strikers, little creatures carried small rods, or flexible
drumsticks. Some struck the rocks, some stroked them, some tapped
them. Some were on scaffolding high on the walls, some, the Jecc for
instance, even swung on fragile trapezes, the length of the pendulum thus
formed determining their rhythm: pulses of complex beats at long
intervals.

This was but one aspect of the sound that pulsed in her head, her blood,

and impelled her forward. She saw Zhot and stumbled toward him. He
turned to her, welcome in his greenish face.

"We thought you too ill. Tonight we see."

"See?" Saba said weakly.

He waved one arm at the activity all around, while still stroking a

stalagmite with the filelike rod in his other. It made a grating noise that
made her teeth itch.

"Sensation! We anchor perception, achieve the unity of sensation that

denies time, and those who dance-above-decay speak, we see, we hear."

Dance-above-decay. Again, he used one of those non-temporal verbs.

A tall Yilayil approached with deliberate step, its elongated body only

remotely resembling an Earth weasel. The gowned creature studied her
with large eyes that gleamed with intelligence and compassion; another
approached on her other side.

The first Yilayil motioned for her to step forward. The second one held

out a small rod, about two feet long. Her fingers closed round it. She
glanced at the thing in her hand, confused.

Zhot turned back to his stalagmite, while the two Yilayil pressed her

forward, gently, to a small fan of rock, so thin she could see light through
it.

The first Yilayil pantomimed drawing the rod across the top of the

rock-fan; she tried it, producing a melodic glis-sando. The Yilayil both
nodded and whirled away.

For a time Saba stroked the fan at random, and then the pulse of the

music penetrated her consciousness once more, sounds and voices rising
and falling in a syncopation that caused her to grope for meaning within a
context ingrained in memory, deep and abiding, from her earliest years.

The edho of the Dorze usually had five components. There was the

yetsu as, the chorus—the chanting voices. Response, reaction, cohesion…

The Yilayil. They were the pile, the highest voices, and limitless in

number, at once the most important and the least important of the
harmonic pattern.

The kaletso—who was that? Was it Zhot? The kaletso was the youngest,

extending the melodic interventions of the aife—

The bane. The "belchers," the percussive voices. Those were the ones

making music on the stones.

The dombe, those who cover. The other races, all singing sustained

music to better the cohesion.

But who were the aife, the elder, the eyes?

Saba's mind reached, and reached again—

And the pattern changed in her mind, and she abandoned the symbol

of childhood, immersing her consciousness in the alien harmonics—

—And the music resolved wholly into beauty such as she had never

heard, and she was part of it. Her will fled, and she became one with the
music. The sound became color became touch became scent and then all
of them and the cavern dissolved into pure sensation for a moment, bereft
of perception, then snapped back, and she was somewhere else.

She saw men and women, dark and stern of face, in the ancient dress of

the great Ethiopian kingdom of Axum, and others bearing gifts of gold
and myrrh and jewels. Then violence, war, men struggling, weapons lifted,
chariots sweeping across sandy wastes, the legions of Rome, men in white
with scimitars uplifted, women weeping, pale men in pith helmets,
swarthy men in uniforms with archaic rifles, an old man dragged from a
throne and cast into darkness, the bright line of a rocket traced against a
full moon huge on the horizon…

Then she gasped as the sneering, hate-filled visage of a Baldy

confronted her, but just as suddenly his face became fearful, terrified, and
disappeared.

Now she saw the Earth, bright and small, dwindling to a point, and the

sun with it, merely another point of light in the glory of the galaxy, but
from that insignificance grew a web of light, like sap refilling the veins of a
dying leaf, melding with other webs from other stars widely scattered, and
to her eyes was presented the destiny of humankind, glory and shame
together as humanity reclaimed the ruins of the star-spanning empire
that had crumbled so long ago.

Something SomeTHING SOMETHING sang in her head…

The aife?

spoke in her head…

spoke in her head.

A vast pressure surged through her mind. It was too much to

comprehend—to bear. She swayed, dropped the rod, and fell senseless to
the ground.

"AS NEAR AS we can tell, they live off the island entirely," Misha said

as they trotted through the darkening streets.

Rain tapped against Eveleen's face, cool and pleasant after two days of

incessant heat. She ran at Ross's side, her jogging pace easily matching
the taller men's strides.

Misha used his infrared scanner to detect body heat. Three times they

ducked back behind shrubs or once a low wall, as beings walked by: once
the tall green ones that functioned as guardians of the peace, and twice
gliding Yilayil, talking swiftly in the language that was so melodic when
they used it.

"All in the direction of the House of Knowledge," Ross observed, staring

after the Yilayil. "Think something is happening?"

"How would we know?" Eveleen asked, thinking immediately of Saba.

"We haven't been outside enough to put together any kind of pattern."

"True," Ross said, but his tone temporized—and Eveleen knew, without

asking, that he felt the same sense of danger that gripped her.

"Come." Misha jerked his head, impatient to be gone.

No one spoke again until they had descended to the ancient transport

station that the Russians had found.

"We spent three days riding this thing. Finding where it went. Where it

still works," Misha said as they waited for one of the flat cars.

When it came up, they squeezed in, lying flat as Eveleen had the first

time, and once again commenced a long ride, swooping downward.
Concussions of air at intersections testified to the size and complexity of
the system. It was miraculous that it still worked—that, somehow, there
was still energy to run it.

Finally Misha stopped the car, which hummed beneath them. In the

dim bluish light, he looked back at them. "This station here"—he gestured
upward at an archway and glowing light—"is on the west coast of our
island. As you see, the transport goes on. I think it crossed beneath the bay
to a smaller island off to the west. We have seen the flyers retreating there
when the sun sets; we think that is where they live. And I assume that this
transport goes there as well, but I don't know. Want to test it, or find
another way across?"

Eveleen said, "Test it."

At the same moment Ross said, "I'm not in the mood for a night swim."

Misha smiled faintly. "Then we go."

He faced forward again, leaned back—his yellow hair brushed over

Eveleen's knees—and activated the car.

Again it dove downward, so fast her stomach seemed to drop. Then,

quite as suddenly, it swooped up again, and she had to swallow to keep her
ears from popping painfully. There were no intersection concussions this
time.

When the car stopped, all three climbed out.

"Here is what happened," Misha said as they walked toward the ramp

leading upward. "We circled back for one last check at the Yilayil
graveyard—just in case. We were careless—not enough sleep, maybe too
sick." He shrugged. "It was clouding up, and we forgot to check for
shadows. They came on us quite suddenly. I got under cover, Viktor did
not. When I came out, I saw two of them holding him in a kind of net.
They flew west, high, fast."

"So it's probable they took him here," Ross said.

Misha shrugged again. "Where else?"

And why? Eveleen thought—but she didn't speak out loud. They were

here to find out why.

Cold air fingered their faces, and Eveleen pulled her rain jacket tight

against her. Misha paused, checking his infrared and his flashlight.

Ross and Eveleen also had flashes clipped to their belts; in silence,

Eveleen gripped hers, but she did not turn it on.

Misha led the way, scanning with the infrared. No warm bodies showed

up on the screen.

Ross murmured, "Why do I think that the First Team ended up here?"

"There were no flyers in their time," Eveleen whispered back. "Not in

any of the records—or were there, Misha?"

He shook his head. "No. No flyers."

Ross grunted. "Well, it was a nice solution."

"This mission has no easy solutions," Misha retorted in a sardonic

voice.

"It's had no solutions at all, so far," Eveleen shot back.

Misha laughed softly, then paused again. They'd reached the entrance

to the station. It was nearly overgrown with ferny plants. They tromped
over thick moss and scrubby brush, then pushed through the hanging
boughs.

Obviously the flyers did not know about the station, or if they did, they

didn't use it. The three were the first ones in centuries to step that way,
Eveleen could tell even in the darkness.

Misha had fixed his flashlight so that it emitted a thin pinhole of light.

He sinned it carefully, then clicked it off. Eveleen blinked in the sudden
darkness, until her eyes began to adjust; whatever he'd seen was enough to
orient him, but he was used to moving about in jungle at night. She was
content, for now, to follow.

They found themselves on a rocky ledge that was once some kind of

road. Flat portions, broken by hearty plants, made walking easier.

The road was built into the side of a cliff. They rounded a hill, and

below them, quite suddenly, they saw dancing lights.

Too late they heard the swoosh of great wings beating; Eveleen looked

up sharply, to see five long shapes dive down on them.

Misha's hand went to his side—his weapon. He didn't unclip it, though.

Eveleen kept her own hands away from her sides, balancing lightly on her
feet. Adrenaline flooded her system, temporarily banishing malaise,
headache, tiredness.

Ross had gone still. "Wait," he said.

Misha gave a short nod; he'd decided the same.

The five winged creatures surrounded them, and one of them gestured

below. The distant yellow light outlined a sharp face with bluish

highlights; the creature looked excited.

It opened its mouth, and began to speak. Eveleen heard a stream of

non-Yilayil gibberish, and wondered what was being said. It sounded
hauntingly familiar.

Then she heard a sharp indrawn breath from Misha.

Ross looked up. Eveleen's heart thumped. "What?" she croaked.

"This language," Misha said, his voice suddenly hoarse. "It—it

is—Russian."

CHAPTER 25

GORDON SAW SABA lying on the ground.

No one else was in the cave. His footsteps hissed and grated as he ran

heedlessly down the worn stone steps to the vast floor.

There Saba lay, utterly quiescent, her body, slender and graceful the

last time he had seen her, now dangerously thin and frail.

"Saba. Saba," Gordon breathed, and knelt at her side.

He placed fingers to her neck, and gratitude flooded through him when

he found a pulse—rapid and light, but steady.

She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, and opened her eyes.

In the weird glow from the multiple light sources, she stared up at him,

her black eyes reflecting the harsh light.

"Saba."

"Gordon? Are you real?" The whisper was the merest ghost.

"I am." A strangled laugh escaped him. "You left your com on. That was

quite a concert."

"It was real, then?"

"Well, I heard real sounds, all right—but I don't yet know what you

heard that might have been different. Can I help you?"

"Yes. Please." She lifted a hand.

He bent and slid his arm round her shoulders. So light, she was!

He rose, lifting her—and realized that his strength had been sapped as

well.

"I can walk. Just help me balance," she murmured.

Gordon let her feet touch ground, and together they proceeded slowly

up the steps, each of them soon breathing harshly.

They stopped when Saba made a sign. Both sank down onto the steps,

Saba leaning against the stone wall. Gordon undipped his canteen and
they both took deep swigs of water.

Saba leaned her head against the rough wall. Her face in the dim

lighting was drawn, but her eyes were steady and alert. "How'd you get
in?"

"Over the last couple weeks I marked at least three ways around those

green guards," Gordon said with a grim laugh. "And I found that this
building is riddled with enough tunnels to make the New York subway
system look simple. I've been exploring them during the early morning
hours. I even found your room. And I mean to take you there right
now—unless you think my presence will endanger you."

Saba canted her head, her eyes going unfocused. Gordon watched in

dismay, hoping she was not about to fade out on him—but then she
blinked, and saw him again, and smiled faintly. "No. No trouble."

He didn't ask. He could be patient.

When she was ready, she nodded, and again they moved up the stairs,

drunken-sailor style.

"It's not… as far… as I thought," she panted when they had neared the

top—but still she had to stop and rest.

This time, though, it was a short rest. She gulped some water, drew in a

deep breath, and straightened up. They continued on, straight to her
room.

No one was about. Saba reached, palmed the door open, and they

passed inside. Full-spectrum lighting, somehow calibrated to be
comfortable for the human eye, clicked on.

Gordon helped her to the narrow bed, and she collapsed gratefully. "I

have a lot to tell you," she murmured. "Let me catch my breath."

Gordon looked around the chamber. It looked comfortable; his

attention was immediately drawn to the unfamiliar computer system. "Is
this the Yilayil terminal? May I turn it on?"

She nodded.

He touched the keypads, noting how different they were from human

keyboards. The screen lit, and some of the pads glowed faintly.

Yilayil script flowed across the screen. With difficulty he made out

some of the words, then he shook his head. He'd make no sense out of this
system. He closed it down again.

Saba said, "First, tell me, please. What did you hear? I mean last

night."

"Voices. Whistles, trills, chants, and a lot of percussives that I could not

identify. I heard you speak to someone. I only caught a few words,
something about you being ill. That was the most distinct voice. Then
there was just the chanting, on and on and on, until it either ended or
your battery ran low: it faded suddenly into quiet, then silence. I tried to
raise you, couldn't, so I reported to Irina, and moved in myself to check
things out."

Saba opened her eyes. "The Yilayil are not…" She paused, then frowned

slightly. "That's not true. They are the predominant culture, and all others
are shaped to them, but the drive to conformity is not engendered by them
merely for the sake of dominance. The issues behind ti[trill]kee are a
response to yet another, greater…" Her voice suspended, and once again
her gaze went diffuse.

This time the reverie, or whatever it was, lasted far longer.

Gordon drove his teeth into his lip, fighting for patience. He sat at her

side, waiting, and again she blinked and focused on him.

After a few seconds, he prompted, "There is someone else behind the

Yilayil ti[trill]kee?"

Saba breathed in and out, her brow furrowed in perplexity. Then she

said slowly, "The harmony is Yilayil, but it is an attempt to understand the
incomprehensible. Almost, I wish to say, the—the ineffable, except that
carries spiritual connotations, does it not? And these are finite beings,
that is ones with corporeal existence, I am quite sure of that—though as
yet I am sure of little else concerning them."

"So there is yet another race here, is that it?" Gordon said.

"Yes, but they exist outside of time."

"Impossible."

She shook her head slightly. "It's true. I don't know how, but I know this

much: they knew I was coming. They gave me Zhot, and Rilla, and the
Virigu I know. The carving out front was waiting for me. From each I have
learned many things. Rilla has looked out for my comfort. I believe it is she
who programmed my room, turned on my computer. The Virigu, I have
come to realize, are in some ways empaths. They sense emotions, and
perhaps—in some way—patterns of thought."

Gordon nodded. "Go on."

"As for Zhot, he seems to be the prime communicator.

He kept trying to get me to 'taste color' and the like, at the same time

as I had to learn to think outside temporal limitations. It's, oh, a little like
Zen, I think. Koans of synesthesia, to break apart the unity of the sense
that bars the time sense. Perhaps the entities even knew that music would
be the metaphor, the catalyst, for understanding… It sounds egocentric,
doesn't it, to surmise that music has developed here in preparation for my
coming?"

"I can believe anything, if you present enough proof," Gordon said with

care.

Her slim, dark fingers pressed against his wrist. "Ah, my anchor, my

link to reality." She laughed soundlessly. "Here's what I can discern. These
entities are not in constant communication with the House of Knowledge,
or the beings in it. That would overpower them, remove their free will."

"How do you perceive them, then?"

"Voices, in the mind—through the music," Saba said.

"I heard nothing like that," Gordon said.

She looked at him. "Did you understand everything you heard? Did you

taste and feel the music? Did you"?" She trilled a Yilayil term that he did
not comprehend at all.

"One of the temporal verbs?" he guessed.

She nodded. "It takes all the senses to comprehend the deepest symbols,

and when one is able to do that, one can— partially—hear them."

"And so?" he prompted.

"And there is some event nigh, something important. We are crucial to

it."

Gordon thought of the disappearance of the First Team. He did not like

what he was hearing. All the clues added up to something drastic—like
human sacrifice. And Saba was lying, weak and enervated, in the midst of
what might be the enemy.

Gordon repressed a sigh.

His communicator pulsed him then, and he clicked it on. "Ashe here."

"They are returned," Irina's voice filled the room. "All of them. They are

all going to Ross and Eveleen's room."

Saba nodded. "Go. I'll be safe enough."

Gordon nodded, reaching to unclip her com. She pointed to the

recharger, and he slid it in, and saw the red light come on. There were still
charges left in it, he saw with relief. Not many, but enough.

Then he got to his feet, hesitating.

"I will be all right," she said.

"I'd feel better if you could contact me," he said, pointing to the

recharging com. "Shall I leave you mine?"

"No," she said. "You're the leader, you must have one. I know I am safe,

for now. I need sleep."

Gordon nodded, thinking that if need be he could break in again—and

this time bring Ross and the other men.

Sneaking out of the House of Knowledge was strangely easy. He

attributed it to the daylight hours—and once he was outside, he did not
need to use care.

Once he was outside of the House boundaries, he moved rapidly across

to the Nurayil dorm, taking care not to confront anyone who would
demand precedence.

The rain kept him cool, though he was thoroughly soaked by the time

he reached the dorm.

Inside Ross and Eveleen's chamber, he found everyone on the

team—that is, everyone except Irina. They all sat against the walls, looking
tired and thin. Everyone had water at hand, and he smelled the
cream-cheese-and-lemon odor of the protein food they all seemed to crave.

Viktor was also there. Gordon saw him and sighed with relief.

"False alarm, then?" he asked.

Misha gave him a wry grin. "Not," he said, "even remotely true. We

have much to report."

"How's Saba? Do we need to do something?" Eveleen asked, as always

quick in her concern for others.

"I found her. She's still there, but she insists she's safe. I'll give you a

report on what she said after you explain." He waved a hand at Misha, but
he turned to survey them all.

"We think we've solved the mystery of the First Team," Ross said.

"What's this?" Gordon drew in a deep breath, trying to marshal his

thoughts.

"The flyers," Eveleen spoke now, her eyes tired but alert. "They speak a

kind of Russian. They were fixated on us because they recognized us, sort
of, but humans have turned into mythic figures for them."

Gordon felt as if someone had hit him in the head. He sat down, took a

long drink of water, then he said, "Go ahead. Talk."

"They took Viktor to talk to," Eveleen said. "Viktor heard it all while we

were traveling to get him."

The Russian nodded, his eyes exhausted.

"They told it in stories. They live in primitive surroundings, but in

recognizable tree huts. They lost technology, somehow, when they gained
the wings—"

"Gained wings?" Gordon cut in. "Is that what you're trying to tell me?

They all just… dropped everything and sprouted wings?"

"That's not clear," Ross said. "They told it in a form of poetry,

apparently." He looked over at Viktor, who nodded again. "Their first
generation is recognizable—by the names— as our First Team. We still
don't know how or why they abandoned all their gear, and the mission,
and ran off. How they got to the island isn't clear, and when the wings
happened isn't either."

"Babies," Viktor said. "Their babies flew."

"And they stayed there, and built a new culture," Eveleen added. "They

seem quite happy—exuberant, even. They really wanted us to stay with
them, but when we said we had to go they were willing to let us leave."

"They're blue," Ross added. "Sky-colored. The First Team are the

ancestors of our flyers down the timeline!"

"So they all—what, mutated? That's nonsense. Genetics doesn't work

that way."

"Of course not," Vera cut in, her voice uncertain. "This is what Irina

and I have recently discovered, and what Ross tells us about these Jecc
corroborates it. From separate evidence, Irina found out that the Moova
practice infanticide—culling out genetic defects. Not by choice. See, a
week or two ago, her employer was desolate. The grief was the more
profound because it was apparently the third one in the family in a year.
At first we thought it was illness, but apparently nobody suffers illness.
There are no doctors—as least among the Moova. But I don't think there
are any for the other races either."

"We're sick," Gordon pointed out the obvious.

Vera nodded, her face troubled. "We will come to that. First, last week.

We did not report this, as we had no real evidence, only our guesses. But
we decided that desperate measures require quick action. Irina told me to
decoy the Moova, and she did some excavating on their computing
system, and found out that they, too, have altered from their original
form, but it is more slow. They try desperately to halt the changes through
this practice. What seems to be happening to the races here is genetic
manipulation, on an impossible scale."

"Genetic manipulation?" Gordon repeated.

Ross laughed, a sardonic, unpleasant laugh, quite unlike his usual. "Oh,

but you haven't figured out the good part yet. What it means."

Eveleen's brown eyes were huge now, and strained. "What it means is,

this is what's happening to us."

CHAPTER 26

ROSS WATCHED THE news impact Gordon Ashe. As usual, the

archaeologist showed little reaction other than the narrowing of his blue
eyes and a tightening of his shoulders.

Then he looked up, his mouth grim. "Where's Irina?"

Eyes turned to Vera, who shrugged. "Probably either finishing her work

or else following up on something."

"Following up on what?"

Vera shrugged again. "She does not always talk about what she's

working on… She finished entering Pavel's notebook, and a couple of
evenings she sneaked out—"

"Wanted Svetlana's data," Misha interrupted. "I gave her a disk

containing what was pertinent to us."

"So is she preparing a report for us all, then?" Gordon prompted.

"I don't know," Vera said. "All I know is, she has been gone some

evenings, verifying data was all she said. I asked her twice. More than
that, she ignores the question." Vera gave a rueful smile. "As for me, I
confess most evenings I am asleep within moments after we leave here. I
am hungry very much, I want protein, I need sleep very much." She
winced, and shrugged again, this time rolling her shoulders as if her back
itched. "Do you think if we do not leave soon we're going to sprout wings?"

Misha laughed.

"No," Viktor said. "Our bones, they are losing mass."

That doused Misha's humor like water on a fire.

"None of us have much body fat left," Eveleen observed, then she turned

to Vera. "You two have analyzed all our food. Is that cheesecake stuff we all
seem to want made out of protein?"

"Yes," Vera said.

"Fueling molecular changes," Gordon said. "Our metabolisms are

working in overdrive. Some of the malaise is probably due to just that." He
frowned slightly, then turned to Viktor. "What other data did Irina need
for verifying?"

"My maps," Viktor said. "Needs for final report."

Gordon looked down at his hands, then up. "The mission has been

canceled. Zina is not going to authorize a trip back to the First Team's
time." He did not look Misha's way.

Ross glanced at the blond Russian, who smiled derisively.

I'll bet anything he's already tried to make a jump on his own, Ross

thought, and tried not to let it annoy him. He didn't know for certain, and
anyway, the Russian had obviously been denied access to the machinery
that set the time jumps—to the past.

"So let's end it," Gordon finished. "Let's all put in a regular day—a last

data gathering—while I work on getting Saba out, and then we're all out of
here."

"Sounds good to me," Ross said.

"I am ready," Vera added, rolling her eyes.

Misha said nothing.

Gordon got to his feet as he unhooked his communicator from his belt.

"Saba doesn't answer," he said a moment later, then, as he started out the
door, Ross heard his voice. "Irina? Listen, here's the latest…"

"Anything else?" Ross said when the others had not moved. He looked

at Vera, who bit her lip, but his question was really for Misha.

"Good night," Misha said, and he went out. Viktor followed, sending a

brief grin over his shoulder.

Vera left in silence.

SABA TOOK HER medicine, then went down to the refectory to eat

something. When that was done, she went directly to the chamber where
Zhot had given his lessons—and there she found Rilla and Virigu waiting,
alone, obviously for her.

In Yilayil, Saba said, "I must talk about what I experienced last night,

for I have many questions."

Rilla said, "We are here, by your desire."

Saba looked at Virigu, and Rilla forestalled her by saying, "A question

about Virigu's knowledge of our motives and desires is best addressed to
me, for just as your people do not go before others without garments to
conceal the outer being, so the Virigu do not talk of what is not spoken
aloud."

Saba parsed that, thinking: So telepathy is a taboo? A brief spark of

humor lit her mind, instantly extinguished. She hoped that Virigu did not
hear it, even as she acknowledged to herself that one culture's (or race's)
taboos almost invariably seem funny to another that does not share them.

Saba said, "I wish to understand what I saw/sensed/experienced last

night."

She paused, considering the sudden flowering of sensory images when

she used the weighted verb. It had tasted. Felt. She had seen it as well.

"You joined the Great Dance," Rilla said. "You have found ti[trill]kee,

and so you are a part of the dance. You must be a part of the dance," she
added.

Saba said carefully, "This is why the carving of myself outside the

House of Knowledge?" The verb for carving tasted of destruction and
distortion. Strange.

"Carving?" Rilla repeated, then she made a gesture of negation. "It is

always there. It grows there."

"Grows," Saba repeated. "You mean, it's a living tree? Or was?" she

amended, remembering that there were no branches on it, no leaves. The
carving was a tall pole, the image at the top, recalling totems of various
Earth cultures— except where those were rough, this one was remarkably
smooth and polished, an almost photographic representation of her own
face.

Rilla glanced at Virigu, who said something in a low murmur, and then

she faced Saba. "It is not done, to take the trees, kill them, and make them
into semblances of something else."

Saba said, "But it was done in the past, right?"

Again Rilla made a gesture of negation. "It is there, always. For all

beings to see. For you to come and find your place."

"So you are saying that it grew there, for us to find?"

Virigu and Rilla agreed.

Saba shivered. Again she felt that weird tug at her brain, as if from

inside. It wasn't as if someone tried to access her mind—like a computer
accessing a disk. It was as if a planet-sized vastness waited outside a small
bubble, trying to…

The image would not come; she felt vertigo. Even searching for a

mental verb did not work, because each one was wrong.

She did yoga breathing, then said, "Who are the…

entities/outside/time—" Again, a flash of synesthetic experience almost
disoriented her. "There is someone in this world besides the races we see,
is there not?"

"Yes," Rilla said. "It requires us all to hear/taste/see/touch/ experience,

it is important."

This time it was Rilla's verb that sent the wash of synes-thesia through

Saba.

"Why is it important?" Saba asked. "I too feel it. I need to know why

this is important."

"Zhot tells us," Virigu said, "that you are the one who

hear/taste/see/touch/experiences the most. All of us are a part, but you
translate it for the temporal mind."

"I." Saba knew then that what she had experienced was no dream,

despite fever—despite physical debilitation. It was real, and the metaphor
of music was the key. For some reason, her own unique capabilities, her
lifelong studies of symbol in relation to sound and sense, had made some
kind of limited breakthrough. And she was not the only one who felt the
sense of urgency.

"Tonight, I will listen again," she promised. "But where is Zhot?"

"There is sun," Rilla explained.

Even considering all the strange synesthetic experiences associated

with terms and verbs, this was a non sequitur.

"I do not understand."

"His people, Zhot more rapidly, they become plants," Rilla explained.

"It is his race's great change. Your people, they change the more rapidly,
become those-who-fly-and-sing-myth." She waved to the west.

A bomb seemed to go off behind Saba's eyes. "Changes. Do all the races

change?"

Virigu and Rilla both made gestures of agreement.

Rilla said, "It must be swift, so Zhot says. Until you hear, he hears best.

It is because your metabolism fights the alterations, and thus you are
made very ill."

Virigu again opened her long, thin fingers in a gesture of concurrence,

and Saba thought immediately of her genetic makeup. Was it because of
the sickle-cell gene? No way of knowing without tests. The immediate
priority was to let the others know—and to get herself away, as soon as
possible.

She thought again of the impending deadline. Whatever had happened

to the First Team might be happening to them—and apparently it did not
necessarily involve death, but mutation.

Yet the Yilayil did kill. Thinking of the Russian biologist, Saba said, "I

have not dared to ask. Those who are buried in the Field-of-Vagabonds.
They have been deprived-of-life. Why? For not wishing to attain ti[trill]kee
?"

"This data can be found in the Knowledge bank," Rilla said.

"Come," Virigu spoke, rising. "We must view the records."

Rilla looked at her. Saba tasted surprise, then wondered how she had

done so. Then she mentally gave herself a shake. It did not matter how,
right now, or even why. She was on a data search; at last the puzzle pieces
were coming together.

But the picture was not clear yet.

She followed the other two into the great computer room, and they

settled around one of the terminals. None of the other beings in the room
paid them any attention, as always. Though Saba had experienced great

change, that apparently did not affect life in the rest of the House.

She sat, and waves of darkness washed through her consciousness,

receding. She would not faint; adrenaline was serving her for now. When
they finished this session, she must report to Gordon, then sleep, for she
had to be physically ready for the great dance that night.

Thinking these things over, she did not watch what Virigu did to the

computer, thus when she looked up at the screen and saw a close-up of
one of the beings nicknamed "Baldies" by Terran Project agents, she felt
shock zap through her nerves.

Virigu looked at her, her attitude one of concern, but then she turned

back to the screen and her chitinous fingers blurred rapidly over the pads.

In silence the three of them looked at an ancient record— the

spaceport, Saba realized. Ships of all kinds sat on the vast field, some
lifting, some arriving. The reverberations of power seemed to vibrate
through the screen as a great vessel lowered slowly, on a blue-white
column of fierce light, to the field.

A voice spoke in a staccato language, but Virigu damped that, and

brought up the Yilayil translation.

At once Saba realized she was going to have trouble with the Yilayil

language. She wondered, as she grappled with meaning, if this was a very
old record—if Yilayil had evolved like human languages do. Of course it
would, she thought, if the culture has changed. And the Yilayil in the
House would see no necessity of changing it—any more than a modern
scholar of literature would change Shakespeare, or the epics of
Anglo-Saxon. A scholar would have learned the early forms of the
language, just as a human scholar did.

So she did not understand everything she heard, but the visual record

made it clear enough: the Baldies' globe ships were among those that
arrived, but suddenly they arrived in great force, and the visual record
changed rapidly as it recorded a horrifically devastating war.

Great areas of the planet's islands were laid waste as the Baldies and

their enemies—in this instance a race that looked like ambulatory
turtles—fought viciously.

And then the Yilayil appeared, armed with some kind of energy

weapons, and began killing both combatants in the war. The narrator did
not give any reason for the war (as far as Saba was able to comprehend). It
was enough that they were killing anyone and anything in their way.

It was not the Yilayil who ended the war; the narrator said, in flowery

language, that the Yilayil were able to halt the ending of life so that the ***
could alter the destroyers into harmless form.

And the rapid flow of images showed Baldies metamorphosing into sea

life, and vanishing into the great waters, and the other beings altered into
flying insects that settled on the mountaintops above the cloud layers.

The record ended, and Saba watched the blank screen, her mind

struggling to grasp all she had heard—and consider the consequences.
First, the *** term: the closest she could come in translating it was
non-ambulatory-life, singular.

Something—some one thing—had caused the Baldies and the

turtle-people to mutate into utterly different lifeforms. It apparently had
taken many generations; Saba had not heard numbers, or had not
understood them if they were mentioned.

But something, some one being, had that power. And this was the same

being—or its descendant?—that was changing human beings.

"Field-of-Vagabonds," Rilla said. "Is for those who destroy life. When

the Yilayil see them, they end those lives before they can recommence the
destruction of before."

And suddenly Saba realized what this implied: that that poor Russian

biologist, who emerged so suddenly from the jungle, probably carrying
some kind of scientific tool in hand, had been mistaken for a Baldy on the
attack. And since he'd not been able to explain himself, the Yilayil had
taken summary action.

Now it made sense, in a weird way. To other races, the humans would

look like Baldies. The absence or presence of hair might be too subtle a
difference for other races to see; meanwhile, the similarities were strong.
The Baldies stood upright, had the same number of limbs as humans,
their coloring could be considered similar. They wore clothing.

They carried weapons.

The Yilayil might still have assumed that the First Team— and the

present team—were Baldies, and though they spoke Yilayil, lived peaceful
lives, and professed to wish to attain ti[trill]kee, the genetic alteration was
vastly speeded up—in self-protection.

But it wasn't the Yilayil who caused that, it was this mysterious ***!

They think we're Baldies, she thought as she rose slowly from her seat.

A salutory realization!

What do we really know about the Baldies?

Her mind went on its relentless drive to extrapolate to the logical

conclusion.

We know they flew about in these futuristic globe ships— and that they

have the capability to move about in time through the gates. They are
capable of extreme violence.

This, and their humanoid form, would lead anyone to conclude that the

Baldies were, in fact, human beings from the future.

Her heart and spirit wished to reject that image utterly, but she forced

herself to examine the evidence. What was the likelihood of humanoid
races evolving on other worlds? A glance at Rilla—even Virigu—showed
that similarities were certainly possible. And biologists argued for
bilateral construction and other aspects of Earth lifeforms being logical
progressions in the chain of evolution.

But she did not want humanity to become Baldies—at least, not like the

glimpse they'd had of Baldies so far. Only, was that the whole picture? The
Baldies could in fact be far different than those strange beings who
appeared and destroyed, as thoughtlessly as humans of the past had wiped
out peoples of other races, and today wiped out various species of
creatures.

She grappled for a time with vast questions of ethics and morality, and

then abandoned them. There was not enough evidence. The question of
the Baldies' origin was for some other team to discover—some data
analysts, who had the time and resources to plumb the question with the

thoroughness it demanded.

Right now she had immediate concerns—ones that must be reported to

Gordon, before she prepared herself for the night's work.

She said to Rilla and Virigu, "I must rest now. I thank you for this

session."

They both nodded, and moved away.

She retreated to her room, grabbed her communicator, and tapped out

the code for Gordon.

He connected a moment later.

"Gordon," she said without preamble—appreciating, as she always did,

that she could talk to him that way. "We are being modified at a cellular
level."

"I know that," he said. "I have a report for you on the flyers, who are

our First Team."

"I just found that out as well," she said, "though I haven't had a chance

to think it through. But here's a poser for you: the reason all this is
happening to us is because every being on this planet, including the
mystery being, thinks that we are Baldies."

Silence, then laughter. It was the kind of poignantly painful laughter

that Saba immediately recognized, for her own reaction had been the
same.

"Well," he said. "Interesting indeed. Quite sobering." Saba said,

smiling, "I thought you'd see it that way. Now, shall I report first, or shall
you?"

"Go ahead," he said, and they took turns summing up the day's

findings.

CHAPTER 27

AS EVELEEN MADE her way slowly out of her dreams the next

morning, she became aware of a sense of change—of portent, almost

before she opened her eyes.

It was a good feeling of portent, that much she was aware of.

When she did open her eyes, it was to see the familiar rounded, bare

walls of their Nurayil dorm cell. She turned on her side, listening to the
faint scrunchings the futon material made, and she sniffed the familiar
dusty-laundry-room smell.

No more, she thought. Then it struck her what the portent was: they

did not have to go to work. It no longer mattered. They were going to go
home.

She laughed. Her ever-present thirst no longer mattered, nor did the

weird appetite for protein. Or the headache, or the joint-ache.
Home—soon, to fresh strawberries, and luxurious baths, and sanity.
Home.

Ross stepped out of the fresher just then, and smiled when he saw her

smiling. "Good dream?" he asked.

"No. Good wakening," she said, getting up slowly. "Shall we bother

rolling this stupid mat? Oh, Ross, I am so glad we're going home. I hope
Gordon got Saba already, because—"

A tapping at the door interrupted her.

"You get that, would you?" Eveleen suggested. "I'll go clean up."

She walked into the fresher, enjoying for the first time in what seemed

an eternity the strange sensation of passing through the gunk that felt like
plastic wrap. Never again, she thought as she stepped through, and never
again, she chortled happily as she shoved her clothing through.

From the outer room she heard excited voices, but no sense of alarm

accompanied them, for she recognized the high one as Vera. Vera always
sounded like that.

She fingered her hair into a braid, then pinned it up off her neck; the

walk through the jungle would be hot, if this day was as sunny as the one
previous had been.

Stepping into the room, she saw a brief tableau: Ross standing head

bowed, hands on his hips. That posture sent a pang of warning through
Eveleen.

She turned to Vera, whose hands were spread wide, her round face

haggard—as though she hadn't slept.

"Everywhere," Vera said, her accent very strong. "Everywhere I could

think. Each Moova house. Each place we have found food. I hide from
Yilayil—I do everything. No Irina."

"What?"

It sounded like someone else's voice. Eveleen grabbed her middle, which

cramped suddenly. "What? Don't tell me Irina is missing."

"I won't if you don't want me to," Ross said with bleak humor, "but the

fact is, she hasn't turned up—not all day yesterday, or, what is more
important, last night."

"Gordon," Eveleen said, thinking rapidly. "He was talking to her when

he left here yesterday morning. Does he know?"

"Yes," Vera said. "I reported to him very late last night, when I went to

sleep. He was not worried—said she was probably following up on some
details. So I did not worry either. But she never came back."

Eveleen nodded. "Did she show up at her job?"

"I do not know that, for we work for different Moova. She was not at

our meeting place at midday, but sometimes she would not join me
because she was busy. I did not really worry at that point."

"No Moova said anything to you?"

Vera shook her head. "That is not their way. We serve, they take no

further interest in us."

Ross said, "I still am inclined not to be too alarmed. You said she

sometimes takes off to do her data verification on her own, right?"

"It is true," Vera said, drawing in a deep breath, which she let out in a

sigh. "She does not always tell me what she is working on. But this is the

first time she did not return at night."

Ross glanced at Eveleen, who shook her head slightly. Eveleen realized

they'd both had the same thought: Irina might have gone to see
Misha—for whatever reason. But they weren't going to bring that one up
without more evidence.

"She might even have gone out to see the Jecc place," Ross said slowly.

"For the final report."

Eveleen said, trying for lightness, "Good. Then you won't have to write

one!"

"Oh, won't I," Ross fired back grimly. "You watch. Milliard and

Kelgarries will expect breath-to-breath detail, in triplicate."

Now Eveleen looked from Vera to Ross. "Should we contact Viktor and

Misha?" She suggested with what she hoped was delicacy.

"I did," Vera said, for once not smiling. "They do not know where she is.

Misha has said they will search the jungle."

Eveleen felt a spurt of worry. So Irina—wherever she was—was not with

Misha. A romantic tryst—Irina going to spend time with Misha—would
have been simple, despite the emotional fallout for poor Vera and her
unrequited crush.

"Why she'd go there makes no sense," Ross said.

"To check on the positions of the First Team's camps," Eveleen said.

"She always seems to need to see everything herself."

Vera looked wry. "This is true. She thinks no one observes properly."

She sighed again. "Viktor is going to check the Field-of-Vagabonds in case
she needed to see the biologist's grave for some reason, and Misha said
that after he visits the camps, if she's still missing, he would see if he could
track the movement of the ancient transport system."

"She knew about that?" Eveleen asked.

"Oh, yes, Viktor showed her when he gave her his maps. She had to see

everything, she said, and so he showed her everything he could think of."

Eveleen looked up at Ross, feeling sick inside. "All I can think of is those

disappearances. We're not quite to Disappearance Day—"

"But who says that it has to match up exactly with Katarina's? We

already know that the others disappeared at different times than she did,"
Ross finished, his expression pained.

"But after," Vera said, her tone hopeful, as she turned from Eveleen to

Ross. "All of them. After Katarina. Not before."

"We still do not know why they disappeared so abruptly, though," Ross

said softly. "We know what happened to them after. But not what made
them drop everything and vanish."

Eveleen asked—afraid she knew the answer—"Viktor thought also to

check—"

Vera pressed her lips together. "Yes."

Eveleen finished the statement in her mind: check to see if there are

any fresh graves at the Field-of-Vagabonds out loud, she asked, "So what
should we do? Search as well?"

Vera said, "Gordon was very specific. He said to meet here, and no one

to go anywhere, after I checked my job and hers. This I have just done. She
is not there."

As an afterthought, Vera unslung her carryall and pulled out some food.

"I'm not hungry," Eveleen said, sitting down against the wall. She

pressed her arms against her middle and brought her knees up.

"We have to eat," Ross said.

Vera nodded. "Must keep up our strength."

Eveleen forced herself to take a few bites, but she kept looking from one

to the other, wondering if they were going to disappear next. A firestorm
of emotions burned through her. Though she could not claim to have
become friends with Irina—not in any sense of the word—she respected
the woman as a colleague and as a very fine agent. She did not want her to
have been killed, but she also did not want to find out that

some—unnamed, unknown—thing had somehow taken over her brain and
forced her to, what, run to the island of the flyers?

"The flyers," she whispered. "Then maybe that's the next place to

check—and we're the ones to check it."

Vera hesitated, then said, "I promised Gordon. We must do this plan

only if he concurs. Too many of us missing—" She gave a shrug. "Then the
others must search for us."

Unspoken was the implication that the unnamed something would

take them over as well.

Eveleen gritted her teeth, wondering how she could have felt so

wonderful on waking.

Vera's fingers trembled as she unhooked her com from her belt. She

tabbed the control, then uttered a Russian curse. "He is using his unit,"
she said. "We must wait."

"I'll prepare our packs," Ross murmured.

Eveleen sat where she was, hugging her arms tightly to herself as Ross

moved efficiently around the little chamber, which felt more like a cell
every moment. Vera sat down against the opposite wall, and did not speak
as she kept tabbing her communicator every minute or so.

Finally—when it seemed to Eveleen that something must happen or she

would run out screaming—Vera's face lit with relief, and she said,
"Gordon! We think—what? What's that?"

Eveleen clenched her teeth.

Ross froze in the act of hooking a freshly filled canteen to Eveleen's

pack.

Vera lowered her communicator and looked blankly at them. "Irina is

back," she said.

" 'Back'?" Ross repeated, and something in Vera's tone must have

triggered an idea, because he snapped his fingers. "She went down the
timeline!"

Vera nodded. "And Zina has returned with her. She has called Misha,

and Viktor. They are coming, they will be here—Zina wants us to go back
at once."

GORDON RAN UP the access tunnel, puffing hard. A sharp pain in his

side forced him to slow, but he would not stop, not until he reached Saba's
room.

She was not in the great cavern; he would tear the place apart, he

vowed, if she was not in her room.

But when he pounded on the door it opened almost immediately—and

he found himself staring up into the face of a tall creature looking kind of
like a sandy-skinned seal.

From beyond came Saba's voice, a little hoarse, but sane—and amused.

"Gordon, this is Zhot."

Ashe gave the being a nod, and a formal Yilayil greeting.

Zhot replied in kind, then withdrew to a corner. His movements were

quick and fluid; disconcerting in so large a creature.

"Zina is here," Gordon said—in English. "We are to leave."

"I can't," Saba said.

Ashe faced Zhot, ready to demand her freedom.

"It's not anyone here," Saba said hastily, before Gordon could speak,

she cleared her throat and added in Yilayil, "No one is forcing me to do
anything. It is I who must do this. Zhot is here to help me to understand
what it is I discovered during the Great Dance."

Gordon gritted his teeth, and when he knew his voice would come out

steady, he said—in English again, "Please. Report."

Saba stayed with Yilayil. "I cannot express any of the terms in English.

Some you might not comprehend; bear with me. Last night I was more
ready for the experience, and I went rested. What I found out is that the

other entity that I spoke to you about is in fact real, it seems to either be
comprised of, or controlled by, all the plant life on this planet. Undersea,
above sea, it's all connected."

"A sentient plant," Gordon repeated—in Yilayil.

"Yes. I still do not perceive how it exists outside of time. I mean, I could

understand the past—but the future? Yet this is the reality," Saba said.

"Go on."

Zhot remained motionless, listening.

"It is I who was able to comprehend a portion of the entity, just enough

to provide an image for the others. It— they—don't really communicate.
It's too large, too vast, too alien. But I understood this much: what it's
doing to us—to all of us on this planet, every race that has come here—is
turning us into plants, or harmless animal helpers for the plants. That is
perhaps what the flyers are. We've been breathing spores since we arrived,
and that's making the change. Rapidly for humans, though there is great
danger, but the entity was afraid that our volatility, our violence, would
endanger the planet once again."

"But… Wasn't that the Baldies?" Gordon said the last word in English.

"Perhaps—or perhaps it hears our innate violence. I don't know."

"So we're being mutated—against our will."

"Yes," Saba said calmly.

Gordon struggled with the inherent moral question.

Saba went on—as though reading his mind. "It is just the same as our

terraforming planets."

Gordon considered this, and though he still fought against an

instinctive revulsion—as if the jungle outside the city had suddenly turned
evil—he said, "No, it's more immediate than that." He thought about how
he'd carelessly uprooted plants all along his rail route. "We routinely kill
plants for food, for other needs, to make this city, even. Not just us, but
the non-plant beings."

Zhot spoke for the first time. "The entity heals the planet."

Saba said, "It knows what I am going to do—apparently what I must

do, to protect the timeline downstream. I must warn all the races on this
world. Even the Yilayil do not quite know the extent of the changes, or why
they are occurring. Whatever they decide to do, they have a right to know.
And it must be I who tells them. I cannot leave until I do."

Gordon considered this, then nodded slowly.

"All right," he said. "Understood. Keep in touch. I will inform Zina, and

I'll get back to you on the next step. Maybe we can help you with this?"

"Some of it I can do with the Yilayil system," Saba said. "I know how it

functions; what I don't know, Virigu can help me with. I will get started
right away. But every race must be informed before I can leave. I see that
as my own moral responsibility."

Gordon thought about the present timeline—and the flyers,

weasel-creatures, and the humanoids, but before he could formulate his
thoughts into a question, the com burred against his skin—in the
emergency pattern.

He clicked it on. "Ashe here."

Vera's voice blared out, in Russian. "You must come! Irina is back—she

went down the timeline—Misha is furious. I think he is going to strangle
Irina, for she then went up the line to the First Team!"

CHAPTER 28

"SO MISHA AND Viktor are coming here?" Ross fired the question at

Vera.

Eveleen felt a wash of sympathy for the tired, confused, frightened

woman.

But Vera answered steadily, "Yes. Misha just said so. But they have one

stop to make before they reach the transport close by."

Ross snapped his fingers. "Of course. The other spaceport

station—that's not far from our terminal site. Misha will probably head

right there," Ross guessed. "I would, if I was going to make trouble. The
Field-of-Vagabonds is a relatively short hike from that first station." He
looked at Eveleen. "Let's meet them there. We might need you to keep
something stupid from happening."

Eveleen knew she could prevent Misha from strangling Irina if she had

to, but she didn't look forward to trying.

But she kept that to herself. "Right," she said. "Let's."

They left, almost running down the ramp.

Outside, they were astonished and dismayed to see the streets of the

Nurayil city impossibly crowded. A huge, spectacular cloud formation
loomed to the northwest; the sun, unfortunately, was still in the east, and
it bore down with accustomed intensity.

Eveleen ignored it as she, Ross, and Vera dodged around the various

denizens of the city. All three avoided confrontations, by mutual and
unspoken agreement. They deferred to everyone, though Eveleen could
have screamed with impatience when a trio of slow-moving oboe-people
maneuvered some kind of complicated machine in front of them and set it
to inch forward.

They followed it only until they reached a side street that Vera knew.

She pointed, and the three of them dashed into the narrow, less crowded
alley. Domiciles lined both sides of the alley. Eveleen glanced through an
open door to see some of the green beings just about to emerge, two of
them humming a kind of dirgelike chant that set Eveleen's nerves on edge.

What was going on?

They skidded around a corner, cutting across Moova territory. Eveleen

had only glimpsed this area, and had avoided it; there were many small,
conical houses that all looked alike, and they were arranged in intersecting
circles, not in orderly rows.

Vera led them through, threading unerringly between houses.

They emerged, panting, in an area that Eveleen recognized. Less traffic

clogged the ways here; mostly the buildings were old, some abandoned,
their architecture strange.

Past those, into the area that had been abandoned longest. Here, the

jungle had encroached steadily. Now they dodged plants and vines and
undergrowth, until they reached the ivy-choked hole that led to the
ancient transport system.

Another run down the ramp. At least the air was cooler.

They reached the concourse, just as one of the flat cars arrived with a

whoosh and a hiss. The foremost figure had yellow hair.

Ross stepped down directly onto the rails, raising a hand. "We'll join

you," he said.

Misha waved them on, his gesture casual, but his face in the dim

lighting was tight with anger.

Ross flicked a look at Eveleen, and she interpreted it to mean that she

and Vera should board first.

"Come on," she murmured.

Vera followed, glancing doubtfully back at Misha, who ignored her. She

settled behind Eveleen. A moment later Ross slid in behind her; he'd
stayed on the rail in case Misha decided to leave before they could board.

No one spoke. The car jerked forward, moaning and vibrating, then

slowed again fairly soon; the journey to the second stop was not a long
one.

The car pulled up behind another one. Halfway up the ramp they saw

Irina and the Colonel—the latter's square body also considerably thinner.
It seemed strange to see her in this environment.

Both paused, waiting.

Misha disembarked with a vaulting leap, then turned to offer his hand

to Eveleen. "Are you here as my guide or my guardian?" he asked.

"We're here," she stated, "to stop trouble before it starts."

"More fool you, then," he said, turning his back.

He was in a hot rage, obviously; his boot heels struck the old tiles as he

strode up the ramp directly to Irina, who stood a little way from the
Colonel, her arms at her sides.

Misha stopped before her and spoke a short sentence in Russian.

Eveleen didn't understand the language, but the meaning was clear:

Why did you do it?

Irina answered in English, her voice, as always, clear, precise, and

emotionless. "I went alone," she said, "because you would not have
permitted Svetlana a choice."

Silence. Eveleen watched the impact of that realization hit Misha—that

Svetlana had, for whatever reason, chosen to stay in the past.

She had chosen.

The Colonel looked from one to the other, then said, "We will discuss

this. Let us go to a more convenient location."

Ross said, "The signal on the coms won't reach here."

"Then we shall go where they will," Zina said calmly.

Everyone followed, even Misha. He walked still with that tight anger,

but his eyes were narrowed, their expression unseeing, almost stricken.
Eveleen looked away, feeling that even a simple glance was intruding on
his privacy. She slipped her hand into Ross's, and he gave her fingers a
reassuring squeeze.

Out in the sunlight, Irina took over the lead. She had found a new

shortcut. Eveleen recognized none of the streets, but fairly quickly they
arrived back at the Nurayil dorm.

Moments later they were in her and Ross's cell—and Gordon knocked

almost as soon as they shut the door.

"Saba?" Eveleen asked.

"I have lots to report," Gordon said. "But it can wait," he added,

frowning as he looked round at them. A little louder he said, "Let's sit
down, shall we?"

Irina remained standing. Everyone's attention shifted to her.

"As soon as I read the notebooks," she said, "I knew what had

happened. I knew that it was I who effected the disappearance. It had to
be so. I knew that if I told any of you, then Misha would try to stop me, or
to go himself, and he would not consider the timeline, or the
consequences."

Eveleen glanced at Misha, who just shrugged.

Irina went on, "I prepared my evidence, and presented it to Gordon."

At that Misha's head came up sharply. "You knew, then."

"Yes. We discussed this yesterday morning. I also understood her

reasons for keeping her mission a secret until it was completed. Go on,
Irina, give them all the details."

Irina sighed, leaning back against the wall as if her energy had abruptly

drained. "What was needed were the physical tests," she said. "So I went
forward and reported. We needed Valentin and Elizaveta for that; I went
back to the First Team and found Katarina, and explained." Her voice
suddenly went uneven. She pressed her lips together, hard, then
continued, her voice harshening.

"Katarina understood. Together we went forward to the present-day

timeline, and there Valentin and Elizaveta performed tests on us. The key
one was bone density. The other molecular in nature. I don't understand it
even now, but there is this to know: the spore interaction on the molecular
level is so subtle that we do not really have instruments to measure it. But
the fact is that Katarina's bone density was so dangerously altered that
there was no returning. The changes had gone too far. Even removal from
the spores would not restore the team to health. The changes were such
that any of the First Team who returned would be forever crippled—if they
survived long enough to shed the effect of the spores."

"Then we're doomed as well," Eveleen said, not even thinking. Horror

seized her.

Irina glanced at her, compassion clear in her gaze. Tears gleamed along

her lower lids, but she went on, "No. For they tested me as well. Our bone
density is not yet at this danger point. For this we either have Vera to

thank—"

Eyes turned Vera's way.

Irina said, "It is she who took responsibility for the food analysis. When

we all began to sicken, the headache and joint-ache required calcium, or
as near as we could find, this she decided, and she found the foods that
would provide the supplement. That is in the cheese dish we all came to
rely on, for it also carried a complex protein that again slowed the
damage."

Zina spoke now, for the first time. "Valentin does not wish to rob Vera

of credit that is due her, but there is the possibility that the spores
affecting us are different than those that affected Katarina and the First
Team."

Irina sighed again, a shuddering sigh that seemed completely

uncharacteristic, and she said, "So when this news was complete—last
night—Katarina and I went back. I knew where most were, from Viktor's
findings, and Katarina knew the rest. Together we found each team
member, and told them. They left their things exactly as we found them.
She did not go back to her archive, but left it buried as she had when we
first went forward. I showed them the transport, and they went as a group
to the island to await the changes there. It was peaceful, it was not bad.
They knew that they would have children. They knew that their children
would fly. And they knew that someday, their descendants would see us."

Silence met this news.

Irina swiped at her eyes, then she turned to Misha. "You are not the

only one to leave someone important. Katarina and I, we were in the
university together. We served two missions together. We were close—we
were sisters—" Her voice suspended, and she shook her head, hard.

No one spoke.

Irina then dug into her pocket. "As for Svetlana, she chose to go to the

island. She did write to you: I brought it with me, so there would be no
alteration in time. Here it is."

She handed Misha a paper. He took it, then thrust it into a pocket in

his shirt.

Zina said, "Valentin urges us to leave now. He says daily the damage

does worsen, and he does not know when the point of nonrecovery would
be, but does not want to risk finding out after the fact."

Gordon stepped forward then. "It is time for my report. You probably

saw the mass movements toward the House of Knowledge?"

"Is that what's going on?" Ross asked. "All we know is, everyone who

could get in our way was out on the streets, just when we were trying to
hurry." He cast an amused glance at Misha, who gave him a sardonic
smile. Misha's eyes, though, were still somber.

"There is a mass meeting being held right now, for everyone who can

cram into the Yilayil caverns. Basically the word is what we already
figured out, but not the scale. Apparently the key sentience on this planet
is the plant life, a vast interconnected awareness that is trying to heal
itself by altering us. It's been trying for centuries to communicate; the
Yilayil language and music kept evolving in the direction needed, but none
of them, for whatever reason, could make the mental leap outside of time
and sensory awareness that it required for even as limited a contact as
Saba made last night. A being named Zhot was the closest, but he had
only reached the awareness of this other entity. A Virigu, and some of the
Yilayil as well. They knew of the entity, but had never been able to
communicate."

"And Saba did?" Eveleen asked.

"Yes," Gordon said. "She made the breakthrough. Her musical sense,

apparently, was the last link needed, the catalyst. She feels that she is
obligated to inform every being on the planet about the genetic
alterations. What they do is up to them."

Irina nodded slowly. After a moment, Zina opened her hands. "It is

right," she said.

No one else spoke.

"So what can we do to speed it along?" Ross asked. "About all I can

contact is the Jecc."

"And I the Moova," Vera chimed in.

Gordon nodded. "Do it. The rest of us will remain here and stay in

contact. Saba's colleagues in the House are telling those who came in
person. Saba and one of their computer experts are busy on the
communications system, letting everyone else know. They should be done
about the time we finish here, for it's enough to let each enclave and race
know, and spread the news in the way they think best."

Ross turned to Eveleen, who felt adrenaline—the old call for

action—suffuse her body. With a clear goal, she found she could move
again.

ONCE MORE THEY found themselves following their customary route

to the transport station, but once they reached it, not surprisingly they
found it completely empty. Even the Virigu was gone; the place was like a
vast hangar, completely deserted.

"Jecc city," Ross said. "Up to it?"

"Of course," she replied.

They scarcely spoke as they made their way once again to the ancient

transport. Eveleen realized they probably could have taken one of the
rail-skimmers—but even after all this time working on them, they never
had learned how to operate them. The rail-skimmers might not even reach
the Jecc city.

The flat cars whooshed them speedily to the southernmost point of the

island. Together she and Ross walked up to the Jecc caves, hand in hand.

They were soon sighted, and a swarm of Jecc came running out to

surround them.

At first Eveleen felt a twinge of alarm; too late she realized that the Jecc

might consider them interlopers or even enemies.

But the tweets and calls as the Jecc tumbled about Ross reassured her.

They largely ignored her—all their attention was on Ross.

At one point one of them must have put a question, for Ross responded

in Yilayil, pointing to Eveleen, "My mate."

Shrill tweets rose from all sides. The Jecc obviously found the notion of

"mates" an exotic concept.

Eveleen did not try to comprehend all the various Jecc reactions, but

Ross seemed to know who to listen to, for again he responded in Yilayil.
"Yes, it requires one of each of us to pass on genetic material. One
offspring results—rarely two or more—but we can repeat the process, just
as you Jecc do…"

Eveleen felt a sense of unreality seize her; the biology lesson lasted until

they reached the outer caves.

Here, abruptly, they entered civilization—but for totally different

beings.

Beautiful colors were everywhere. The catwalks and pathways, the

furnishings, everything was child-sized. Jecc swarmed everywhere, on all
levels—for Eveleen saw, tipping her head back, that catwalks and cave
tunnels were located at several levels. At the very top, she saw tiny faces
peeping timidly down—Jecc children?

Then she lost sight of them as they were led beyond, into an even

greater cave. Cool air swirled gently across her face as she gazed up at row
on row of great murals painted in realistic, glowing colors all round the
stone walls. This was what she had glimpsed from the upper vent—but it
was far vaster, and more beautiful, than she had conceived.

Sudden silence brought her attention downward.

The Jecc had settled into rings, with old wrinkly Jecc closer at hand,

and others outward in widening circles.

One of the Jecc greeted Ross formally, using all the Yilayil deferences.

Ross said back, "I have come to make certain you were aware of the

new people recently discovered."

The old Jecc trilled, "We know of the world-being. We know now why

we have changed."

A weird, sighing whistle went through the ranks of Jecc; Eveleen felt

hairs prickling on the back of her neck. The emotions caused by the sound

were intense—loss, isolation.

"Then you can decide what you want to do," Ross said. "This is why I

came."

"What do you do, Ross of Fire Mountain?"

"We have a ship, we will go back to our world," Ross said.

Again a sound swept through the Jecc, this time a susurrus of

high-voiced whispers.

"We have a ship," the old Jecc said at last. "At Harbeast Teeth Island. It

is secret all these generations."

"One ship?" Ross repeated.

Rapidly the Jecc explained—and Eveleen began to understand. That

sense of unreality still pervaded her mind. She seemed to be watching
from somewhere else, observing this exchange between two utterly
different races, using the language of a third race, to talk about spaceships
from the past— a technology not yet attained by Earth civilizations.

Comprehension worked its way slowly into her head. The ship the Jecc

had was a kind of shuttle, hoarded against the day when they would return
to normal. Apparently they had a great ship up in space, circling around.
Eveleen nodded to herself; of course it would be unmolested. The
mysterious plant entity only controlled what was on the surface.

How many other races might have motherships circling around in

orbit?

No way of knowing.

Suddenly the conversation ceased. Ross turned to Eveleen. "Come on,

we're done," he said.

In silence they walked past the ranks, and out of the caves.

Neither spoke until they reached the transport.

"So are they going back home?" Eveleen asked. "I confess I didn't follow

it all."

"They don't know," Ross said. "Some want to, some don't. Others want

to stay—and a fourth group wants to find another world."

"That same debate must be going on all over the world," Eveleen

commented.

Ross sat back. "I don't know why, but the whole damn mess makes me

sad."

He activated the control, and the flat car zoomed forward, relieving

Eveleen of having to think of anything to say.

"LET'S GET OUT of here," Ross said when they reached the Nurayil

dorm for the last time, and found everyone gathered—Misha having also
just returned from an unnamed errand.

"I am going to need help transporting Saba," Gordon replied, looking

relieved that they were safely back. "She's by far the weakest of us all. Her
body has—we believe—been resisting the changes, and her immune system
is at a dangerously low ebb."

Eveleen watched Ross's face brighten. Now he had orders, impending

action—a clear need, one that he could meet, even if it was just to carry a
sick woman on a stretcher.

"There's a transport near the House of Knowledge," Misha began.

"Found it," Gordon said. "Everyone needs to get their gear, and meet at

the transport near this dorm. Come on, let's move."

Under cover of the sudden springs of conversation, Eveleen heard

Misha address Gordon. "So it was a false trail you sent us on—the island,
the Field-of-Vagabonds."

"I needed to keep you busy," Gordon said. He hesitated, then added,

"You'll have to admit even a needless trip is better than sitting with
nothing one can do, counting off the seconds."

"Ah." Misha shrugged. "So you claim empathy as your reason?"

Gordon only laughed. "Go. Get your gear."

Eveleen watched Misha vanish through the open door.

She knew that whatever Svetlana had said in her letter was not going to

be shared with anyone; nor would Misha permit anyone to see him
reading it. She thought about being separated forever from Ross, and even
though the Russians' relationship might not have even remotely been like
what she and Ross shared, for the first time, she felt pity for the blond
agent.

She kept her thoughts to herself as she packed her few belongings. To

her surprise her emotions were mixed at the thought of abandoning
forever the little cell.

Ross and she were alone. She was not aware she'd sighed until he said,

"You can't be wanting to stay."

"No," she said. "But I hate feeling that I could have done better. That

this mission was so strange, so…"

"Nightmarish? Long? Boring?" Ross prompted, looking amused.

"Oh, I don't know," Eveleen said. "Confusing, I guess is the best term. Is

it only going to get harder, Ross? Suddenly I feel, well, old."

"You're sick. I'm sick. We're going home," he reminded her. "C'mon,

help me get our sticker off the door. I hope the next inmate has a better
time—"

"If there is one," Eveleen said. "How weird. It could be that we are the

ones who caused the evacuation."

"Except we still have three races down the timeline, two of them

nothing anyone would want to be," Ross reminded her.

They laid their palms on the screen, then pressed the control that they

had learned meant vacate.

"Uh oh, we forgot to check our credit rating," Ross joked.

"Oh, I'm sure we had enough for half a ride," Eveleen joked back, trying

for lightness.

They kept up the banter as they threaded their way through the

crowded street.

This time there was a difference. Unasked, various beings offered them

deference. Again and again the other races withdrew, permitting them to
go first. No one spoke to them, and expressions were as impossible to read
as ever, but somehow their status had changed.

Eveleen was still pondering this when they descended the ramp to find

everyone waiting.

Everyone—even Saba, who looked so frail Eveleen felt her heart start

pounding. But Saba's dark eyes were clear and smiling, and she held her
head at a proud angle as she leaned on Viktor's and Gordon's shoulders.

Together they all rode the last car to the station near the parkland.

Half an hour's hike, through misting rain, and they reached the time

apparatus.

Zina stepped forward and worked the controls.

Eveleen watched, waiting impatiently for the doors to open.

Lights flickered on the little console. Zina frowned, and punched the

code more carefully.

Impatience turned to alarm.

"What now?" Ross asked, then he cursed under his breath.

For answer, the doors slid open.

And framed there were two Baldies, blasters in hand.

CHAPTER 29

QUICKER THAN AN eye blink, Zina slammed her hand on the door

controls and they shut on the Baldies.

She poked at the manual lock, saying over her shoulder, "Fast. Out of

here."

Misha led the way.

Gordon picked Saba up; Ross fell in step right behind them, in case

Gordon, who was breathing heavily, should falter. Ross glanced down, saw
Eveleen at his side.

"They must get that same vertigo right after the transfer," she panted.

Up ahead, Zina turned. "I counted on that." She gave them a faint

smile.

Under his breath, Ross said to Eveleen, "She's fast. Give her that."

Eveleen chuckled somewhat breathlessly. "You mean the rest of us were

going to stand around like zombies."

From behind came the keening noise of blaster fire.

"They're out," Misha said with mordant humor. "And hunting us."

"Quiet." Zina's word was not loud, but her voice carried command.

No one spoke. Ross's mind roiled with questions— guesses—plans as he

plunged along the pathway behind Eveleen.

Viktor took over the lead, and in silence they wound along trails and

under hanging ferns, coming to a stop in a deep little grotto.

Gordon bent, and Saba slid to the ground, where she sat with her eyes

closed. It was hard to see her expression; the light seemed muted.

Ross blinked, surprised to discover that night was falling.

The rain had ceased, but the sky was covered by a heavy bank of clouds.

Everyone was breathing hard.

Ross said, "If they've got the machine, that means they've got the camp

upstream."

Zina gave a tired nod. "It means they might have the ships as well." She

turned to Gordon. "Your surmise was my own: that our tampering with
the navigational wire must have sent out some kind of signal we were

never aware of."

"Where do we go now?" Vera asked. "Back to the city?"

"Then we lead them right to the others, and they'll start shooting

everyone," Eveleen protested.

"They will find their way to the city anyway," Zina said. "And they will

shoot until they find us. I think we must go ahead, and warn the Yilayil.
Now, so they have time to prepare."

Viktor gave a single nod, and plunged into the undergrowth.

A short time later they came to the transport, and both Viktor and

Misha checked the area carefully before they emerged from the protective
screen of shrubbery and dodged down into the partially overgrown
entrance.

"This ought to buy us a few hours," Ross commented as they half

skipped, half ran down the steep rampway.

"The lights will draw them," Misha responded.

"Whom do we tell to get the fastest action?" Zina asked.

Saba said, "We must return to the House."

The car was still there from earlier; they all dropped into it, Gordon

hovering protectively near Saba. The two of them conferred in quiet voices
as everyone else found a seat and leaned back.

Misha worked the controls. The car lurched, then began to pick up

speed, pressing Ross back into his seat. He rather enjoyed these things,
but he'd always liked roller coasters— the more dangerous the better.

They passed their old station and continued to the House of Knowledge

station.

This one, Ross noted with grim surprise, did not seem as dusty and

neglected as all the others. Who in that place used it—and why?

Useless to ask now.

When the car had come to a stop, Gordon helped Saba out, and in a

group they proceeded up the ramp.

There they found a clean, dry tunnel. At the exit doors, Saba turned.

"You'll have to wait," she said. "No one's been permitted inside. Even with
all the changes, I don't know what it might mean to break that rule."

Zina said, "We will be much better here. Gordon, go with her. The rest

of us will remain here until you return."

Ross promptly dropped his pack to the tiled flooring and sank down

with his back to the wall. He pulled out his canteen, took a deep drink,
then offered it to Eveleen, who also drank.

Vera sat down on Eveleen's other side, and Viktor beside her. They

began to converse in quiet Russian. Zina and Irina had embarked on
another conversation, also in Russian. Ross, lifting his head slightly, saw
Misha standing at the other end of the tunnel, his back to the group, his
body tense. Reading his letter, of course. Ross shook his head, and
returned his attention to his immediate surroundings; from time to time,
he saw his wife sending covert and compassionate glances Misha's way.

It was not long before Gordon and Saba abruptly returned.

"They know," Gordon said. "And if I understand right, they are

prepared."

"Then here our responsibilities end," Zina said. "Let us return to the

time-shift apparatus. We have to see if they still hold it."

"We have to take it back," Ross said grimly.

Misha turned around. "You don't," he said with all his old sardonic

humor, "want to see what happens?"

"And how can we do that?" Eveleen asked, hands on hips. "I'd as soon

not have a ringside seat, especially with blasters providing the special
effects."

"No," Ross cut in. "Let me guess: another of these transport stations

will give us a perfect view?"

Misha smiled, and Viktor laughed.

"The other tower. The spaceport tower," Misha said. "It was probably a

military outpost of some sort. You can see over the entire city from it."

Zina hesitated, then gave a nod. "If it's quick. We'll have a better report,

maybe a better understanding of what happened."

Again to the cars, and this time they proceeded farther up the line.

Ross realized he was getting a feel for the geography of the transport
system; if he was right, the Yilayil city had been much, much bigger in the
past.

They disembarked and walked out into an empty street, partially

overgrown. All of them used their flashlights, making their way after
Misha.

The tower turned out to be one of the ones Ross and Gordon had found

in the far future—the tall red one wherein the savage weasel-creatures had
built their lair. They had not been able to explore farther.

This time there was an elevator to take them up, silent and slow but

still working. Bluish lights flickered in it, faint but still working from some
long-term power source.

At the top, there were a number of devices that turned out to be zoom

lenses. A central control area with a huge screen above must have been a
video linkup of some sort— but age had destroyed that system.

The lenses were manually operated. The one Ross chose had dust and

some tiny fungi growing tenaciously in it, but it worked well enough. He
could see more clearly down into the dark street than he could with his
naked eye. The principle was not infrared—he couldn't figure it out.
Everything looked shadowless and curiously flat, but discernible.

"Hey!" Eveleen's voice was sharp. "They're right below us!"

"The spaceport," Zina said. "Of course. They would check there first—"

"What do we do? We haven't any weapons," Vera asked, looking from

one to another.

Ross saw his wife in her fighting stance, her face tense but calm. Misha

had not moved.

He suddenly looked up. "Watch now." He pointed downward.

Ross pressed his eye to his viewer, in time to see not two Baldies, but a

team of ten of them, walking in single file up the empty street, firing at
anything that moved. They also shot away any plants in their way, blazing
a trail that anyone could follow.

And had.

As Ross watched, the lead Baldy tipped his head back and stared right

up at the tower—seemingly at him.

"You think this was their tower, long ago?" Eveleen murmured.

No one answered—everyone was watching.

From behind came a group of six tall, four-armed figures, all of them in

flaxen robes.

"Yilayil," Saba murmured, easily heard in the silent room.

The lead Baldy swung about, lifting his weapon, but before he could

fire, the Yilayil all raised long tubes to their mouths. Ross could see their
furred cheeks puff as a cloud of particles that glowed with odd colors
streamed out of the tubes; he didn't know if the colors were real, or some
effect of the lenses.

The Baldies got off two shots, and two Yilayil collapsed to the street.

Then the Baldies stopped firing. Looking around wildly, they slapped at
their faces and bodies, tried to run, but moved as though wading through
glue. The ground seemed to be sticking to their feet. Involuntary wormlike
motions lifted their arms into the air, splayed their fingers, and tipped
their heads back. Within a minute, they stood frozen, and horror suffused
Ross as he saw thin green tendrils curl out of their ears, mouths, and
noses.

He hastily looked away, swallowing rapidly. Whatever had happened, it

was no more pleasant a death than the blasters had been.

Zina's voice was flat. "That's enough. Let us retreat."

"Just as well," Ross said tightly, "we don't have to go out there."

Eveleen gave a quick, wincing nod.

They withdrew in ordered haste, glad of the tight air system—for

whatever that spore had been that the Yilayil had used might still be
permeating the air.

No one spoke on the return—either on the transport ride or during the

night hike to the time-transportation apparatus.

Misha and Viktor checked ahead—but they found the transport hut

deserted. The rest of the group emerged from the jungle, Gordon still
helping Saba, and Zina once again pressed the controls.

And again nothing happened.

Ross felt Eveleen's hand slide into his. It was obvious what had

occurred. The Baldies had either changed the codes or else had jammed
the apparatus. Either way, unless the team up the timeline figured out
what was going on, they were stuck here forever.

"We assume that a signal brought them," Saba said at last. "Why do

you think they came?"

"To rescue that scoutcraft," Gordon said in a tired voice. "Remember,

the globe ship belonged to the Baldies originally."

"Then…" Eveleen said slowly. "Then we are the bad guys here, not the

Baldies?"

Silence met this, but Ross sensed everyone's attention turning her way.

They all sat in the dark, forming a semicircle around the transport

doors. No one lit a flash—too dangerous a lure.

"Think about it," Eveleen said. "I mean, I'm scared of them, and I know

the horrible things they did. But we came here on their ship, and we know
that the crews on these globe ships all died. How would we feel to get a
signal from one of our craft, and follow it up to find a lot of aliens on
it—and our crew gone, presumed dead?"

"They brought the war to us," Ross said.

"We don't know if it was a war. Oh, they seem to be shoot-happy, but

then so have we been in the past, and we've always seen ourselves as the
good guys."

"So we're the villains?" Misha's voice came out of the darkness, cool and

amused.

"To them we are," Eveleen said, her voice steady. "We don't know

anything about the Baldies' motivations. Boris— everyone—thought that
the globe was a scoutcraft. That argues that at least some of their missions
were not war-related. Their encounters with us have involved their deaths
as well as our own."

"So their action on Dominium—the old timeline—was self-defense?"

Ross asked.

"No," Gordon said. "That was warfare, all right. But we don't know

when those Baldies appeared from. Their cultures might vary as much as
ours have. All we really know about these people is that they are hairless
humanoids, that they have interstellar travel, that some of their foods can
be ingested by us, and that they have time-travel capabilities. We don't
know what their grand strategy is, we don't know their motivations,
emotions, loyalties, or what they consider threats. Nothing."

Just then a hum filled the air, lights flickered on the transport—and the

doors slid open.

In the dim light, Valentin stepped out. "Ah! Did we manage well?" he

asked.

Voices talked, laughed, whooped, a spontaneous expression of

relief—and release. Neither Gordon nor Zina said anything about
maintaining silence as they helped Saba in first.

Ross squashed his primitive but urgent instinct to shove his way

forward and make sure he was next. Instead, he waited, and Irina and
Vera were sent next; after that he and Eveleen stepped inside.

As soon as the doors closed, Eveleen sighed and leaned against Ross. "I

just want to go home," she said.

He tightened his arm around her.

The vertigo seized him then, and a moment later the doors opened. He

stumbled out, Eveleen with him, and there, in a lit clearing, were other
members of the team. The acrid scent of burned vegetation singed his
nose; he sneezed as the doors closed behind him.

"What happened?" he asked, finding Case Renfry standing nearby.

"Baldies hit you guys first?"

"Wait," Renfry said, sounding as tired as any of the agents. "We'll brief

everyone at once—and we'd better hurry, because more of them might
show up at any time."

"I take you to ship." That was Gregori.

Ross and Eveleen fell in step behind him, letting him lead—and make

all the decisions. Suddenly Ross felt exhaustion grip his head, and he
forced himself to walk at a smart pace.

Still, it seemed forever until they reached a clearing, and there was the

ship. The Baldy ship. With a weird mixture of emotions skittering through
him, Ross walked up the ramp and straight to the galley.

The weird mysteries of the universe could wait—first order of business

was some hot coffee.

The welcome aroma of fresh brew made him realize someone had been

ahead of him here, too; he looked up to see Gordon pointing silently to a
row of mugs, just set out, judging from the steam curling up lazily.

Grateful beyond words, Ross grabbed the nearest and slurped, not

caring that his tongue scalded. Tears sprang to his eyes, but the coffee
made its warm way down inside him, imparting a sense of well-being that
he hadn't felt for an eternity.

He was partially aware of the others crowding in behind, and the row of

mugs diminished to just one left over.

"Are we all here?" Gordon leaned in the doorway, trying to count heads.

The galley was crowded with bodies, but no one seemed to want to move.
"Case, why don't you fill us in on what happened?"

"They landed at the space station, luckily," Renfry said. "Elizaveta was

over that way doing a last check to make certain we'd collected all our
analyzing gear, and saw them come down. She hightailed back here and
we shut the ship down so they couldn't get whatever homing device had
brought them. Unfortunately, they must have some kind of signal on the
time devices, because they found ours, and of course we had the time set
to your year. There was no way to warn you."

"Well, they won't be following us back," Irina said, her eyes wide and

dark with strain.

Ross frowned. Eveleen was not looking at him. She stared down at that

one last mug of coffee, her lips parted.

Ross realized then that someone was missing.

Quick glance—Misha was missing.

Irina said in her precise voice, "Mikhail Petrovich reset the time to the

First Team. He said he was going to destroy it when he got there. The
Baldies—those the Yilayil don't get—will be trapped back where we were."

Ross whistled. "He went back? To the First Team?"

Irina's nod was short, her face now blank. "With Colonel's permission."

Zina turned to Boris. "We are here, and since the transport is ruined,

there is no need for a last equipment run. Let us take off."

Gordon looked at Zina, his face strained. Then he turned to the crew.

"You heard. Coffee break is over—strap down in your bunks."

Ross retreated, taking his coffee with him.

Gordon was apparently going to stay in the control cabin, as Ross found

himself alone. He climbed into his bunk and gulped the rest of his coffee
before strapping in.

A short time later came the unpleasant sensations associated with

takeoff, but this time he thoroughly welcomed them. His mood was so
good it must have made him get over the effects faster, because as soon as
they had reached null-grav, he unstrapped and launched himself out of the

cabin.

He was not the first, though.

He found Irina at the screen, her face turned away, her shoulders

hunched, and her hands gripping her arms as she hung in the air,
watching the planet dwindle into a tiny point of light.

Finally she said something in Russian, her voice broken, and Ross

hastily pushed himself back, glad he had not made any noise.

He found Eveleen at his shoulder—and Gordon.

"What did she say?" Eveleen asked when they reached the rec room.

Gordon winced. "I have lost them," he said slowly. "I have lost them

both."

CHAPTER 30

ROSS WAS SURPRISED when Gordon offered to room with

Viktor—and Viktor accepted. This left Ross alone, but only for a short
time. Eveleen appeared, duffel floating beside her, half an hour later.

She grinned as she tossed her bag in the direction of the bunk. Ross

watched it gyrate in midair, then bump gently against the cabin wall as he
said, "Not that I'm not glad to see you, but what about Saba?"

"She's the one who needs the most sleep. We just talked, and although

she's so invincibly polite I thought we were going to go around and around
forever with the 'Whatever you prefer,' no, 'Whatever you prefer' routine, I
finally got the impression she'd just love to have the cabin to herself so she
can sleep, sleep, and then sleep some more." Eveleen wrinkled her nose,
and sniffed. "Your sinuses clear? Mine almost are. When I think of those
spores…" She mimed a shudder—and since she wasn't holding on, she
accidently began spinning gently in the air.

Ross laughed, and grabbed her in a hug.

A little later, he went out in search of food. He was ravenous almost all

the time—and he wasn't the only one, he noted.

After he got his meal (and he was determined to eat as wide a variety as

possible, if for nothing else but to get rid of the taste of that one food
they'd eaten for weeks), he cruised directionlessly.

Hearing voices from the direction of the old study cabin, he paused.

There he heard Gordon—and Viktor.

The conversation was a mixture of Russian and English, with an

emphasis on the former, but in it Ross heard Misha's name several
times—and once the name Travis Fox.

It was Gordon talking. Has he finally made his peace with Travis's

disappearance? Ross thought. Because one of the scenarios the big brains
back at HQ had come up with was that Travis had not suffered any kind of
traumatic death, but had chosen deliberately not to return. Gordon had
seemed to take this personally—as if he were responsible, as if he had
failed the Apache agent.

Now another agent—a part of Gordon's team—had deliberately made

the same choice. His motivations were different, but the effect was the
same.

Misha had chosen never to return home again.

MISHA'S CHOICE KEPT coming back to bother Ross from time to time

as the ship days slid measurelessly into one another.

He slept, ate, played games, and watched videos. The entertainment

stuff brought along had been used minimally on the way out, but on the
way back, they all seemed to have the same idea. It wasn't just the lack of
a mission to focus on; they were all soul-hungry for scraps of home, even
stupid movies. Ross found himself watching action flicks over and over,
just to listen to English.

The return trip passed without incident.

They landed, refueled, and no one was waiting to attack them. The

globe ship lifted again, obedient to the mysterious tape that unknown
minds had designed and programmed, and arrowed them unerringly
straight for Earth.

When they landed, it was still winter in Russia—deep winter. The

journey back was the same, only in reverse: a truck to the cargo plane, a
cargo plane (this time it was heated) back to the landing strip, then a
train to St. Petersburg, where they were quarantined until Russian and
American scientists had determined that the spores were gone from their
bodies. During their time in quarantine they continued to eat voraciously,
and their recovery progressed fast. And it was true that Saba had suffered
the least alterations; her damage had been to her immune system. About
the time that Ross began to feel desperately restless they were released
from quarantine.

And Zina came through on her promise of a celebratory tour. They

spent a couple of days visiting historic Russian sights. Ross looked at some
of those ancient Byzantine mosaics and wall paintings. The strange eyes
that gazed down at him from those old paintings somehow reminded him
of the Jecc.

What had happened to them? Weird to think that whatever it was had

already happened by the time these paintings had been made.

Ross wanted to go home.

He kept his mouth shut. Eveleen clearly appeared delighted with

everything; Gordon was interested, and Saba, who still tired quickly,
insisted on not missing a single tour. She gazed about her, those
intelligent, far-seeing eyes sometimes going diffuse. But she never stopped
smiling.

Ross found the baroque palaces and fabulous art collections interesting,

but what he really enjoyed was seeing human beings all around
him—hearing a human language, even if he couldn't understand it.
Normally impatient of crowds, he now welcomed humans all about him.

He did get unexpected reminders, though; seeing children darting

about in a snowy park, his thoughts were drawn yet again to the Jecc.

And to the present timeline, which Ross, Gordon, and Renfry had first

discovered.

In the present timeline, there were those three races: the flyers, who

knew they had to stay. The humanoids, who were probably the Baldies
caught back in time. And those Yilayil who—for whatever reason—refused

to leave the planet. Or had been forced to stay?

So many unanswered questions! At least for now, he thought one night,

after they returned from a ballet. He sat down and opened his laptop,
resolving—now that their return to the States was mere hours away—he'd
better get started on his report.

The first note that popped up was his surmise about the feathered cats.

Feathered cats.

Who brought the cats? he thought. We never saw any, and we know the

two teams never brought any. It argued yet another expedition, for
whatever reasons. And the planet's great entity would start altering these
little predators into, what, the birds that they hunted?

He closed the laptop, grimacing. No, he'd deal with reports—and

memories—when he had to. For now, he was on vacation.

TWO DAYS LATER, they stepped off the plane in Washington, D.C. All

around them were people speaking English!

Ross's euphoria lasted well into the expected battery of debriefings,

medical and psych tests.

During the interview portion of his reports, he startled himself by

frequently resorting to Yilayil to express certain ideas. He realized that
one cannot completely shed one's experiences; good and bad, they shape
one permanently. In conversations he—and Eveleen, Saba, and
Gordon—frequently resorted to whistle/drones for certain words and verbs
that really were better expressed in Yilayil.

"It's a habit we're going to have to drop," Ross said to Eveleen as they

prepared for bed that night. "Unless we want to be talking a secret code."

"Not in front of other adults," Eveleen said, smiling. "But in case we

have kids—so much better than spelling the crucial words out, don't you
think?" She grinned in fun.

"Kids," he repeated. "Is that what you want to do?"

"Don't you?" She still smiled, but her brown eyes were serious.

He shrugged, a little helplessly. "I don't know—I hadn't thought. Is this

something you want right away?"

Eveleen shook her head. "No. We've invested too much time in our

training, and the Project needs us. And the work we do, even when we fail,
is good work, I believe. I've been thinking about this a lot, ever since we
lifted ship. I think we need to stay with the Project, at least until they
don't need us."

Ross considered. "I had such a bad childhood," he said slowly. "I just

never considered kids… But I do know how I'd raise them, which would be
the opposite of how I was raised. Or not raised," he finished, laughing
ruefully.

Eveleen grinned. "Well, we have plenty of time to consider our options."

Then she narrowed her eyes in that familiar assessing look, and added,
"There is something. Did I upset you with the idea of kids?"

"No," he said. "Surprised, yes. I was so used to thinking about us being

stuck on Yilayil—and if we were stuck there, would we eventually have
mutated offspring…"

"Yes, me too," she murmured.

"It's Misha," Ross said. "And his staying behind—"

Eveleen waited as Ross struggled to articulate.

"I—am I warped somehow? Has my background done something to

me—" He shrugged. "This is stupid. I don't know if I can express it, or even
if I should."

"Talking things out is good, we agreed on that," Eveleen said. "You

can't shock me—I've seen too much in my own single years."

"It's Misha," Ross started again.

"Misha? Go on."

"Not him, but what he did."

"Ah!" Sudden enlightenment widened her eyes. "Is it that you don't

think you could have made the same decision, given the same
circumstances, only if I were on the First Team instead of Svetlana?"

Ross grimaced. "If I found out you were prisoned there for the rest of

your life I don't know if I could willingly join you, knowing there were no
options. Does this make me—"

"It doesn't make you anything," she said fiercely. "Stop it. Stop. You

can't torture yourself with 'what if questions because the circumstances
are not the same. For one thing, both Saba and Gordon are convinced he
meant to go back and stay, if he found Svetlana, and further that choice
was made from the git-go. I guess they talked a lot about it. Not
surprising, considering they both lost agents to past timelines."

"How do they see that?" Ross asked. "Because Misha wangled his way

onto the mission?"

"That could have just been his sense of adventure." Eveleen laughed. "I

don't know all their reasons. One thing Gordon brought up was Misha's
own psychological state. He was so much like a man suffering from
combat fatigue. Too much violence, too many dead companions, after all
those Baldy attacks on the Russian stations. It makes people see life
differently."

Ross nodded. That he could understand.

"There were other things, though I didn't ask for them. Here's what

convinced me. All that flirting before we left, and on the ship. It was so…
so empty. I really think it was his way of blinding us all to what he meant
to do if he could. After all, once we got to the planet, he could have carried
on with both Vera and Irina. Each of those women would have welcomed
him. But he didn't. He'd closed everyone off by then, and he was angriest
when he thought that Irina had closed off his access to Svetlana. But at the
end—" Eveleen shrugged. "He finally saw the way he'd looked for, and the
fact that Zina let him do it meant not only that she'd seen how the
destroyed machine would keep us safe, but that he'd refuse to come back.
He'd thought it all out ahead. It was not a moment's decision, made in
anguish."

Ross sighed, and cut right to the real issue. "Would you go back?" he

asked.

She turned her head away, her brow furrowing slightly. "I don't know,"

she said finally. Then she smiled at Ross. "It works the same for me as it
does for you. Unless I knew all the circumstances—unless they were real—I
have no idea what I'd do."

He kissed her. "Then let's drop it, and move on," he said.

She grinned, and they finished getting ready for sleep.

Later on, when he thought over the conversation, he suspected that she

did indeed know what she would have done, but she was wise enough, and
generous enough in spirit, to at least pretend to match his ambivalence.

That's real love, he thought sleepily. She's a couple steps ahead of

me—but I can learn. And it will grow, and change, and make new people of
us both.

All we need is time.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

FOR MORE THAN sixty years, Andre Norton, "one of the most

distinguished living SF and fantasy writers" (Booklist), has been penning
bestselling novels that have earned her a unique place in the hearts and
minds of millions of readers worldwide. She has been honored with a Life
Achievement award by the World Fantasy Convention and with the Grand
Master Nebula award by her peers in the Science Fiction Writers of
America. Works set in her fabled Witch World, as well as others, such as
The Elvenbane (with Mercedes Lackey) and Black Trillium (with Marion
Zimmer Bradley and Julian May), have made her "one of the most popular
authors of our time" (Publishers Weekly). She lives in Murfreesboro,
Tennessee.

Sherwood Smith is the author of more than a dozen novels, including

Wren to the Rescue and two other Wren adventures. She is also the
coauthor, with Dave Trowbridge, of the Exordium series of SF adventures.
Smith lives in Southern California.

Together, Andre Norton and Sherwood Smith have written two Solar

Queen novels, Derelict for Trade and A Mind for Trade. They continue
their collaboration with this book, the first in a new series of Time Traders

novels.